Rediscovering Imagination

I got a new desk a few weeks ago and besides the desk in the box there were also several pieces of heavy-duty cardboard. These pieces soon became M’s new favorite toys, and unlike some toys that only keep his attention for a day or two he’s still playing with them today.

What is it about a boring, brown chunk of pressed paper that can replace an entire room full of toys?

The answer is simple: the magic of imagination.

The cardboard is a blank canvas that he can make into anything his little mind dreams up. It’s been used as a tunnel for trucks, a climbing wall, a boat, and a trailer to haul his tractor. He’s built towers that get knocked down over and over. Just jumping up and down on a piece is enough to throw him into a fit of giggles.

When was the last time I looked at cardboard as anything other than something that needs to be hauled out to the recycle? When was the last time I really used my imagination?

Imagination and I used to be inseparable. 

Reading was our meeting place and we could burn through a book or two a day, escaping into whatever world the author had created for us. We would be on the prairie with Laura Ingalls one day and on a train with the Boxcar Children the next. She helped me draw, paint and glue together construction paper and Popsicle stick dreams. Imagination took me by the hand as we skipped out to the playhouse and made sand pies and hose-water tea for our guests. Up in my room she was there with the Barbies as they prepared for the pageant.  

Then college, work, and the Internet happened and imagination got buried beneath the unimaginative demands of adult life, but I’m attempting to uncover her. Watching my son discover his imagination makes me want to be back in that place where she and I were best friends. He’s helping me do this every time he sits down to play with play dough and he wants me to make a cat, or when he takes his truck to papa’s farm, or when he transforms that cardboard into a race track.

I’m coaxing out my grown-up imagination by doing this thing called writing, something I had shut down long ago because…I don’t really know why now. I guess it was a lack of confidence and belief in both myself and her. Back in June she was gently nudging me when I signed up for the writing workshop and I think she plans on sticking around. Sometimes she happily comes out to play, other times require a little bribing. I’m trying to read more like I used to and find imagination in other creative outlets. When I’m doing a DIY project, journaling, even baking, I can feel her with me.

Thank you M, and the box full of cardboard, for reminding me that imagination was always there, I just needed to let her back in.