Kite Flying

There are avenues in my mind that lead me to dream-like places. It happens most when I’m outside with nature and alone.  Sometimes I can be listening to conversations while I’m with a group of people and I am cast away to another place. I try not to let this happen. (but it does)   

While reading Ensouling Language, by Stephen Harrod Buhner, I’m reassured this isn’t a bad place to go.  It’s a place writers can depend on to help them create.

This dream-realm is a space where I can inhabit a character’s body, my mind can jump into a character’s brain. 

I have used this dream-place to escape some traumatic times in my life. To rise up against fears I've had.  I depended on a pretend world to simulate another present time than the one I was currently in. I’m not only talking about when I was a child, either. It’s a strategy I’ve used as an adult, too, and it helped me cope. I’d pretend I was someone else, or somewhere else. I’d fabricate a scenario to keep from being too overwhelmed or frightened.

Each time I allowed it, I judged myself for going there. I thought it was a place I could get caught in and perhaps never return, if not careful. Anyone who has feared being crazy understands the fear I experienced of losing my mind. It could be I needed to be more afraid if I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of the use of my imagination.

As a teacher when I’d try to get students to create or think with their imaginations, some of my first grade students had difficulty finding this place.  I’d see them on the playground pretending in their play, but in a more formal setting they struggled. 

Maybe they had been told, “Stop daydreaming,” or “Get your head out of the clouds.” Imagination can be seen as a barrier to children who are unable to focus on what they are meant to do or what the adult-world may want them to do. They begin to feel guilt or fear traversing their imaginations.

Morning at Englewood Beach

Where is this plane through which our imaginations travel? How can it feel safe at one point and then reckless at another? Is it easier to use when we get older if starting at a young age or is it necessary to develop over time?  Can we explore this cloud-space later in life when we haven’t allowed ourselves to before?

I think most of us have felt this magical place if we’ve read a good book or watched a good film. We’re transported by the authors. We believe the place and time is possible and let our imaginations let go of reality.  We allow the author to put us on a kite to glide through the air. We let them run and we’re pulled and guided by the thin string of our imaginations. 

I use to believe writing was a methodical practice of using words and language as tools.  Now I know those tools are only helpful if I can conjure up the same fantasy world I’ve used to keep out fear.

I don’t believe there’s a separation between an adult world and a child’s world in our minds.  We mature, we accumulate more experiences, we develop intelligence, but I think it’s a mistake to think we’re above thinking like a child. It’s a big price to pay for adulthood.

I feel lucky to have spent so much time as a teacher of children. They taught me to value my imagination and ability to play, as my own two children have.