Muchness 101
When I was younger, I had a wild imagination. I found a crazy amount of inspiration in movies, and I spent a lot of time creating adventures inside my head. I thrived on the words of books and in the far away places they carried my mind. My younger sister and I sent our barbie dolls on rescue missions full of magic and intrigue, and often dressed up as characters from extravagant stories we created out of the air.
I remember feeling, in my childhood, as though the pictures and places in my head were real and surrounded me. I could close my eyes and become a super secret spy, a runaway princess, an orphan searching for adventure. A row of kitchen chairs became a train on which my sister and I would escape. A blanket fort was a hidden cave that offered shelter from harsh weather and evil kings.
This mystery and wonder I found in the world around me fueled my imagination. I held tightly to my mind's distant lands, doodling them terribly in a sketchbook, and writing them down in messy spiral-bound notebooks. I devoured novels, used up many ball point pens, and wished for adventure.
As I grew older, my imagination grew quieter. It remained vibrant and alive when my nose was tucked between the pages of a notebook, or my body was hunched over paper, scribbling furiously. I lamented the fact that slowly, my crude lego castles didn't seem to be quite the fortresses they had been. Blanket forts were wonderful because of the way the light fell through the holes in the blanket, not for their cave-like shelter. Games of dress-up couldn't convince me that I was a tree-climbing princess. The world around me was more present in my mind than my own imaginings, so I felt I had outgrown something that had been very dear to me. Yet as I outgrew the world of dress-up and secret spy escapades barbie adventures, I never stopped my love of reading and writing. I found that new worlds were just as vivid as they had always been inside the pages of a book, and that my pen immensely enjoyed my expanding vocabulary.
I am nineteen now, on the brink of a new decade. Sometimes I look back with fondness at my childhood, and laugh at how simple it was to believe in things bigger than myself. I had a silly, carefree mind. Now, my imagination isn't carefree. It is purposeful. Growing older hasn't stolen wonderment from me, it's just made it something I have to seek out and mold to appreciate. The wisdom that comes with age allows me to embrace those childlike qualities I so loved about childhood. The understanding I have of the world helps me to appreciate the beauty and wonder all around me.
Sometimes it is difficult to see wonder. Sometimes it is laced with sadness. Sometimes what used to be simple is complicated. I think that imagination helps sort things out. Being purposefully imaginative allows me to take a second look, to see things for their potential.
My blog is for me. I want to sort out what I see in the world: the profound, the funny, the sad, the complicated.
The muchness.
I remember feeling, in my childhood, as though the pictures and places in my head were real and surrounded me. I could close my eyes and become a super secret spy, a runaway princess, an orphan searching for adventure. A row of kitchen chairs became a train on which my sister and I would escape. A blanket fort was a hidden cave that offered shelter from harsh weather and evil kings.
This mystery and wonder I found in the world around me fueled my imagination. I held tightly to my mind's distant lands, doodling them terribly in a sketchbook, and writing them down in messy spiral-bound notebooks. I devoured novels, used up many ball point pens, and wished for adventure.
As I grew older, my imagination grew quieter. It remained vibrant and alive when my nose was tucked between the pages of a notebook, or my body was hunched over paper, scribbling furiously. I lamented the fact that slowly, my crude lego castles didn't seem to be quite the fortresses they had been. Blanket forts were wonderful because of the way the light fell through the holes in the blanket, not for their cave-like shelter. Games of dress-up couldn't convince me that I was a tree-climbing princess. The world around me was more present in my mind than my own imaginings, so I felt I had outgrown something that had been very dear to me. Yet as I outgrew the world of dress-up and secret spy escapades barbie adventures, I never stopped my love of reading and writing. I found that new worlds were just as vivid as they had always been inside the pages of a book, and that my pen immensely enjoyed my expanding vocabulary.
I am nineteen now, on the brink of a new decade. Sometimes I look back with fondness at my childhood, and laugh at how simple it was to believe in things bigger than myself. I had a silly, carefree mind. Now, my imagination isn't carefree. It is purposeful. Growing older hasn't stolen wonderment from me, it's just made it something I have to seek out and mold to appreciate. The wisdom that comes with age allows me to embrace those childlike qualities I so loved about childhood. The understanding I have of the world helps me to appreciate the beauty and wonder all around me.
Sometimes it is difficult to see wonder. Sometimes it is laced with sadness. Sometimes what used to be simple is complicated. I think that imagination helps sort things out. Being purposefully imaginative allows me to take a second look, to see things for their potential.
My blog is for me. I want to sort out what I see in the world: the profound, the funny, the sad, the complicated.
The muchness.
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