The Power of Imagination

The inspiration for this entry comes from Emily Expo. Here is her wonderful blog entry. I dare you to read it and not think about your own past and the things that matter. Thank you Emily for being so brilliant, amazing and giving me an idea to run with for my own blog. Please support her and give her blog a read. I promise you won't be disappointed.

http://www.calgaryexpo.com/blog/confessions-from-a-playground-misfit/


I always hear stories about people being bullied who commit suicide or turn the anger against all those that bullied them and have often wondered why I didn’t go down one of those paths. In junior high and high school I experienced things no one should have to go through. I experienced first-hand just how incredibly mean people can be. I was the butt of jokes, picked on and teased endlessly by everyone including my own brother, and I was even turned into a bet by two people who were supposed to be my friends. It was a harsh time and I spent a lot of time in tears or just plain angry. I tried endlessly to either fit in or to just hide in the background but of course neither really worked as good solutions. I was lucky though because with all that going on I still had some great friends, and I also had support from a handful of the most amazing teachers, who recognized not only that I needed someone to listen to me but that I had a talent for writing which they encouraged. But even with all of that I still think that at least some part of my ability to navigate the horror that was my teen years was my imagination.

I hadn’t really given any of this much thought in a very long time. Those six years were the worst years in my life but they are also what gave me the goal that I’m working towards now as I work towards my ideal weight. When I’m done I want to try and help other teens dealing with weight issues to overcome and change their lives. So today when I read Emily Expo’s blog I found myself thinking back to my own experiences being a misfit. Then when I saw her facebook post asking for what inspired our imaginations growing up the idea for this blog began to form. In thinking about it I realized that I too spent time escaping to a world of my own creation. It was a world where I could be anyone, where I could do anything and could be the person I so wanted to be in real life. It was a world that was always changing and always had the true me in the starring role. In my imagination the boys liked me, I was everyone’s friend and nothing got in my way. So where did that all come from? Where was my imagination inspired? When did I even realize it was possible to get lost in a world of my own creation?

It scares me a little that I was able to come up with an answer to these, but I guess it shows how much power and influence an author and books can have. I can actually still picture with clarity the scenes in which I heard the two books that would stick with me and start my love affair with words, writing and reading. The first book is called The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards. The first time I heard the book I was in the elementary school library sitting on a set of risers (2nd riser from the top) that were covered with a horrible orange carpet that only a school would have. The second book is The Trumpeter of the Swan by E.B. White. The first time I heard this story I was sitting in a desk in my grade 3 and 4 split class (I was in 3). I’m not sure what it was about both stories that worked to transport me away but they did. I was in the stories. I could vividly see the characters and scenes come to life. My heart went out to Louis the mute swan and I remember wandering through Whangdoodleland with the Professor and the children trying to get to the last whangdoodle. Both of these books stuck with me so completely that when I briefly worked at a bookstore they were a couple of the first books I hunted down. This was a challenge in itself as I could not remember the titles or the authors and couldn’t even find a good way to translate the images in my head to words to describe the stories. With putting some heads together we were able to figure it out and I was able to get the books, which I re-read and still found myself lost in. The fact that the books were everything I remembered shows just how deeply they were set into my mind.

After those two books I quickly started reading everything and anything I could get my hands on and this continued as I left the relative safety of elementary school and entered the wild hallways of junior high, hormones and cliques. As things got bad in my new school I actively started to read as an escape. I found books that had characters that I could relate to, usually misfits that succeeded in spite of all their struggles. I was beginning to realize the power an author can have and started to wonder if I could do it. It was in junior high where I first started to try and write creatively. At first I created stories in my head. I told myself different fantasies to fall asleep or drifted into them when all I wanted to do was cry in school. I was starting to realize if I could write stories I loved in my head that they might just translate on paper to something other people might like. With a little luck I hoped (and still hope) that one day someone will be able to take something I write and be able to find their own escape in it.

Imagination is such a powerful tool. It continues to play a huge part in my life. My imagination actually helped me deal with Will’s death. I have a hard time talking to people and so when Will passed away I didn’t really talk about it. I wrote about it and thought about it but didn’t really talk about it. Eventually it started to come into the stories I still create for myself each night to fall asleep. It was in these stories that I was able to tell myself the things I needed to hear to be able to start to move on from the loss. It was also a way I could (and still can) get my best friend back even if it’s only in my mind. (Hopefully that doesn’t sound too crazy). It has also come in handy as I’m trying figure out what I want in a career. As I create the perfect situation in my mind I’m starting to figure out what I should be looking for in terms of work that will actually make me happy. There is something safe about the world inside your head. You can ask and answer the tough questions that you might not be ready to answer in real life. My imagination is like a warm blanket on a cold night and I love to curl up in it. Nothing feels more like home.

I think everyone should try to spend a little time in their imagination. Grab your favourite drink and curl up with a good book or a story in your head. Let the world drift away into fuzziness even if it is only for a little while.