This piece is a memoir...
I see things differently than most people. I believe this to be because I have the imagination and wonder of a child. It is something I have cultivated rather than quelled, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am immature or have other ‘childish’ qualities. I have this imagination through good literature and cinema, making an effort to invite it into my life rather than eliminate it. When my imagination is set free and unbound from the limits that most “older” people put on their imagination, I can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch things I never thought possible. Some days, I sit down to write a story. Brand new characters in an unknown setting were waiting to be discovered. My mind began to wander, but this wandering led me to the sudden freedom - the freedom to create.
Most of us went to Neverland with Peter Pan, danced with a Prince, or fell down the rabbit hole with Alice…but when did the pixie dust run out? When did the music stop, or when did we go through the door to reality? Do we have to go through this door, the door that removes the wonder from our minds and leaves us only believing in certain things that others have deemed ‘real’? I didn’t.
When we hear the word ‘falling,’ it often has a negative connotation, but falling into a book, into a world made of dreams, makes me happier than when I was standing. I don’t know which book was the first book I read or what movie was the first one I watched, but I do know that every single one from the start aided the expansion of my imagination.
People like me do not see the imagination as something made-up or non-existent in reality. It is just as real as waking up and brushing our teeth in the morning or any other “real” things that we do. Imagination is not something that lacks presence in our senses or reality, for it is a part of our reality, and we can feel every bit of it. Through time, the world begins to reveal the cruelties that previously were hidden behind a curtain when we were younger. As these things show themselves, we realize that the world is not designed for the innocent mind. We protect ourselves, but as a result, our imaginations fade. People focus on goals in school or at work rather than looking at the sky and finding creatures in the clouds, treating realities as a chore rather than the world full of magic they used to see right in front of them.
Imagination is vulnerability, but it also leads to a person’s strengths. If someone lives their life with an open mind and an open heart, prepared to go into any unknowns with this optimism and wonder, it leaves them vulnerable, but they may come out of those unknowns with gifts that bless the world with a creative mind. Those who live their life shielded, not letting their imaginations wander, will indeed find themselves in a safer position; however, they will not gain the gifts so needed by a world saturated in black and white. The imagination allows one to see the world in 3D color. The people who grow taller and simultaneously less imaginative eventually live their lives in a literal sense rather than focusing on the things that are not present to the senses.
Ⓒ Charlize Andrews 5-17-22
Comments