UNDER THE PILLOW, in a cupboard, or stuck on a treetop trying to escape … where has my lost imagination gone? Now that I’m grown it tends to disappear on a regular basis. Sometimes I find it in strange places. At other times, it’s a movie like Toy Story 3 that brings back the ability to pretend.Imagining when I was a child was natural and key to my existence. The forest fairies I would visit and the house builder I pretended to be with my alphabet blocks enriched my world. Boxes were trains and ribbons were roads I traveled on with my tiny toy cars and dress up dolls.
Creativity can get snuffed out early when school begins and we learn to colour inside the lines. By the time college rolls around, the stumbling blocks of reality and adult pursuits put a lid on the toy box as well as the imagination. Boundaries are set and mental dives into impossible realms rarely occur.
That’s why adults and kids alike will relate on so many different levels to the characters in Toy Story 3 and its brilliantly conveyed plot about a boy whose toys must be given away before he leaves home for college.
It took a thriving imagination to write such works as Toy Story, Alice In Wonderland and Harry Potter. It also took creative thinking to discover the world wasn’t flat, develop a safety pin, make the first fire and turn the first wheel. There is incredible value in quantum leaps of the mind. This is what cracks boundary walls, allowing the light of new ideas to seep through.
After seeing Toy Story 3, the stuffed toys and inanimate objects (pictured above) I have hung onto for years took on new meaning. It is not that I think they are secretly alive. But I did give them a much needed dusting and wished them a very good night before drifting off to sleep.
You can read the children's story I wrote several years ago about inanimate objects coming to life called Couch & Company HERE.
Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms
Oh, I loved this post, Penelope! You've inspired me to rescue my imagination from under the mat and dust it off.
ReplyDeletewhat a timely reminder that suits everyone.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by Dave … I’ve seen your amazing photographs. They have a rare mystical quality that is very appealing.
ReplyDeleteThanks also for your comment, Carol. I don’t think your imagination has gone anywhere … I can clearly see it in the pictures you take and the stories you tell about each of your adventures.