Can you recall your childhood dreams? What were they? Do you remember how they may have come about? Childhood memories, dreams, hopes and wishes are so powerful because they help to shape the way we see the world and believe it or not they pepper your day to day experiences into adulthood. You may never even realize how they do but they do, it is the magic of childish flights of whimsy, the world seen through the fanciful eyes of a child full of playful visions, fantastical creativity and with no need for barriers. Wouldn't you like to see the world through that lens every once in a while? Guess what? You do! It happens but we quickly stomp it out of our minds as silliness, unsensible, a waste of time... Whoa! Lets backtrack and not be so quick to switch our thoughts "back to reality". I want you to think about what thoughts you enjoyed getting lost in as a child? Did you love to play make believe, music, dance, run around barefoot through the grass, did you love to read? I did, I loved all of those things especially reading, I devoured books, magazines anything I could get my hands on, I spent countless hours in the library reading many things that were wildly inappropriate for my age and you know what? I turned out fine in fact I flourished in my imagination, creativeness and my curiosity . Now I am not suggesting you let children read 50 shades of grey! But I did read many classics and I encourage all the children in my life to do so as well. Half the time I didn't even know what all the words meant my world was really opened up when a very nice librarian brought me a dictionary {after I had asked her what a word meant in a book I was reading} and told me to write down all the words I was unsure of in the book make a list, look them up, write down the definitions and keep it with me and that would help me to understand the story better...EUREKA!!! I wish I could remember which word I had asked her about or which book I was reading because it changed my world. I was 7 when I started reading C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" series I cannot overestimate how much these books mean to me, I LOVED them and they gifted me a rich and vibrant world and so much joy. Not long after that I picked up a classic because I thought the name looked pretty {I didn't know what it meant} but the letters looked fancy and the order of the letters looked beautiful to me, it sounds strange but I was an extremely visual child and often described things in colors, shapes or feelings the letters were W U T H E R I N G H E I G H T S
I read it, had to have my dictionary nearby at all times and I could not be torn away from it, I started acting in a dramatic fashion and used words and expressions that I thought sounded like the characters in the book, I drove my mother absolutely mad! I started to incorporate into my play, day dreams and thoughts all of the richness and beauty that I read in those stories. I dreamt about things I knew nothing about like living on a farm or in dreary castle, I went around for years trying to order Turkish delight just like they had in "The lion the witch and the wardrobe" people were always surprised and my mom would roll her eyes and wave her hand in dismissal. I didn't know what Turkish delight was till years later as an adult. My mother would wake up early, really early before the sunrise and I loved to wake up early as well and stare out the window while it was still dark but light was creeping in like a sliver of golden silk string I would watch the grass shimmer with dew {I read about it in a book and knew what dew meant} and I would dream that I was on a farm up so early because we had to tend to the animals. I would envision myself running on the grass barefoot and free, I could hear the roosters cock-a-doodle-doo and see the pigs playing in the mud I had a white farmhouse with a window over the kitchen sink and flowers in a white jar, hence the photo at the top of this post, it was taken while I was in Pennsylvania driving around I came upon a beautiful white farmhouse and went to explore then I saw it... "my window" the memory flooded back and I had to take a shot of it. I love that picture and what it represents to me, I try hard to recall all of my childhood daydreams and fantasies they helped me tremendously in life and have brought me a sense of hiraeth and nostalgia for simple days when getting lost in a fantasy was a wonderful way to spend some time. We need to get back to our daydreams ladies, we need to get lost in a book, we need to lose track of time doing things that serve only us and provide an outlet for creativity and unadulterated pleasure for those are the things that fill up our tanks and give us the gas to power on take time to remember your childhood dreams and think about how they entwine into your life today...it's quite interesting! So pour a cup of tea take out a journal wake up before the rooster crows watch the sunrise and get lost in your childhood pleasures...
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