Have you ever thought about what imagination is? About how we come up with the ideas and images we come up with? Have you ever wondered why it’s so difficult to imagine the way we did as kids? I wonder that sometimes. I miss imagining with no limits. What changed that ability? Was it a specific event? Reaching a certain age? Learning something in school?
When I was in third or fourth grade, I remember lying on top of the plastic bin we kept in the backyard to hold outside toys. It was one of those bulky, greyish green things with the textured surface. The sun warmed it, and I’d go outside and sit or lie on it, staring at the endless sky across which an occasional cloud or two floated by. I could stay there for what seemed hours, though it was probably only twenty minutes or so, and I’d just think. I’d wonder about how the sky came to be; I’d stare up at the small leaves shaken by a breeze in the tree branches above me. Sometimes, on weekends or when school was out, I’d walk over to the school and find a place on the shaded cement path that wrapped around the building. I liked the cool feel of the cement, especially on hot days. We lived in a desert climate at the time.
I remember playing outside for hours, sometimes all day. There was one game my friends and I played once at our school…I don’t remember what the name or goal of it was; I just know we had two teams, and there was a lot of chasing and hiding involved. It was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. I remember feeling like I was a secret agent or something, crouching behind walls, crawl-running to doorways, even (germophobes, read no further) hiding in the huge and empty-but-still-gross-smelling dumpsters near the doors where, when school was in session, we lined up in the morning and afternoon. It was as though my entire life depended on this game, on my ability to hide from that other team. We took it so seriously. Imagination was a big part of that. We didn’t worry about chores or homework or money or jobs or…anything, really. Our minds were completely invested in that game; we were able to immerse ourselves in that imaginary world.
Why is that so difficult to do now?
I don’t know what it is, but something tries to stifle our imaginative faculties as we grow older. Something tries to force us into believing that fantastical stories, unrealistic drawings, quirky, imaginative games and the like are not normal or should be relegated to the children’s section.
Those who resist that stifling are the dreamers. They can, when they want to, still see the world through the lens of their former, childlike selves. To quote the writing of a new friend, the dreamers can look at “macaroni art and stick figures with glue” and see that maybe “[all we need is] to look at [those] pictures and remember what is was like to dream; to be whisked away by the breath of fantasy.”
Photo: Before the stifler. (Old photo; not sure who took this one.)
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