My daughter went to a birthday party this weekend and all of the children were encouraged to play dress up. The girls were mermaids and the boys were pirates and my daughter came home from the party with a huge burst of enthusiasm for life.
And this was not just a sugar high. She was so wound up that she could hardly find the words to tell me about her trip into the faraway land of imagination. As far as she was concerned, she was a mermaid. Her face was sparkly and she had a tail. The depths of the ocean were hers.
Sometimes I forget to play. I forget that we are here to imagine and dream and play dress up. It’s an easy thing to let happen. We have so many things that need to get done. Eat. Work. Sleep. Make things. Fix things. Clean things. I have lists on my computer and in notebooks and on scratch paper, lists of all of the things that I want to do or have and even be. But I can be anything. That is the power of the imagination. And you have to be careful not to lose it. Or as Mark Twain wrote in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”
So this weekend was a reminder to get my imagination back in focus. To remember what it’s like to have a tail. Or a sword. Or both. Because I can.