"Imaginary Friend"

I had an imaginary friend named Sally.  She was all sorts of wonderful.  She was the kind of girl to hold hands with while skipping and singing, pausing only to jump in mud puddles or to look at bugs.  She played nice in the sandbox, never thinking to hit me in the head with a metal truck.

I wonder what happened to Sally?  Did she grow up and marry Prince Charming and have 2 perfectly wonderful children?  Did she become an neurobiologist or a world famous musician?  Perhaps all of the above?  I hope she had a perfectly spectacular life.  I miss her.  I wish we'd kept in touch.

I felt pressured to give Sally up back then.  Mom wouldn't let Sally have a plate at the table.  Dad didn't want to take Sally fishing with us and I had to leave her at home.  My sister was more straightforward.  She made fun of me for indulging in fantasy while my parents exchanged looks with each other making it clear they agreed.  Stick with the real world.  Fantasy is next to crazy.

Sally went underground for a while.  I talked to her in my head instead of out loud.  I showed her the bugs I found.  I made her parts of our sandcastles.  I knew she was fantasy, but I was lonely.  The Glen where I grew up was filled with natural beauty, but it had very few children my age.  Sally brightened my days until I got a tiny, green turtle.  Then all those bugs became turtle food, and nobody seemed to care when I talked to him.

I think we give up too many things to count as we get older, so much so that we can't even remember what we used to have.  We forget to play and imagine.  We learn to fit in, but we're ghosts of our original selves and we spend too much of our adult lives trying to get some of ourselves back again.

I felt cursed by loneliness when I was a child.  Sometimes I look at it now as a gift.  With only myself to talk with, I decided for myself what I thought and felt.  When I got older, I was comfortable challenging societal norms when I experienced peer pressure.  Of course I had that sister who made fun of me, but I mostly didn't care what she thought.  After all, I didn't approve of everything she said and did.  Live your own life and leave me alone.

While I didn't have many kids to play with, I did have quite a few old people, some of them as lonely as I was.  They were a gift in a different way.  One old lady was charmed to have tea with my imaginary friend and hospitably put out a plate of cookies for Sally (which I helpfully assisted Sally in eating).  I had serious conversations with my old people and discussed issues I was hot and bothered with, issues I'm pretty sure I haven't even considered since.  Maybe they'll matter again when I'm old?

Sometimes the challenges we face turn out to be part of what makes us special.  Sometimes they cause us to look in different places than we would if everything was the way we wish it would be.  Everyone has something unique about their experience, and that uniqueness is what makes each of us important in the world.  Each person's story is its own piece of art.

"Imagination"

I have been accused of “magical thinking” by engineers and the kinds of people who protest Harry Potter, and the only problem I have with that is that there are people who protest Harry Potter.  Why shouldn’t I think magically?  Why should my reality conform to someone else’s ideas?

When I was little, I fantasized about my future.  I saw myself going to college, working as an illustrator, becoming an art director.  I put every ounce of my productive time into achieving those ends, and there were plenty of obstacles along the way.  I worked, I saved, I hoped, and I dreamed my dreams – then I lived those dreams.  Just having the fantasies would not have gotten me where I wanted to go, but I couldn’t have worked towards my goals without first having the imagination to build my fantasies.

I have often talked to people who don’t know what they want to do for a living.  I’ll ask, “What brings you happiness?”  It seems to me that the people who feel lost in their career goals often start answering that question with their desire to make money, or their need for security, or what their parents think.  None of that answers the real question, “What kind of pursuit will make you happy enough that you will pursue it with the kind of drive that will eventually bring success?”

Oprah likes to say “Do what you love and the money will follow”.  Yeah, easy for Oprah to say, but I think it’s essentially true.  I’m also inclined to agree with a bumper sticker I saw that said “Real musicians have day jobs”, and that often goes for artists too.  The demand for money to support my art addiction is often in conflict with my need to create.  But I, and everybody else, have the talents we need to fully live the lives we’re meant to live.  We just have to start with the right fantasy.

Indigene has been doing a colorful journal project that inspired me to dust off a stack of old women’s magazines and start cutting out phrases and words that spoke to me.  I glued them on a scrap of mat board and put it on my desk for motivation.  What do I really want?  Sometimes I forget that art is the center of my circle or that singing and being happy is something I have to remember to do.  I should quit complaining about my current bed and buy a new one, or at least a new mattress.  Sometimes we don’t know how much we want something until it’s kind of randomly put in front of us when we’re in a hypnotized state from flipping through women’s magazines.

Is it magical thinking to create the intention, and then make that intention reality?  What have you dreamed into reality?

I thought I was done writing for today, and then I went to Sharon’s blog, and found she gave me a prize.  Woo hoo!  Okay, I’ll admit it once again, I love awards.  I’m shameless that way :)  Check out her site.  She’s always got something interesting to look at or cook or inspire.

Part of the love in awards is the joys of passing it along, so my picks are below.  (See, I wanted to manifest “love”, “share”, “smile”, “friends”, etc. and it’s coming true already!)  Pass the love along!

http://indigeneart.com/blog/
http://terrilewis1.com/blog/

http://creationsbymit.blogspot.com/

http://vickismithart.blogspot.com/

http://theodraws.wordpress.com/

http://puddleofcrumbs.blogspot.com/

http://www.theslumberingherd.com/

http://btdas.blogspot.com/

http://augustcoreopsis.blogspot.com/