Bits of wreckage strewn haphazardly about the house hinted at childhood and the wonders of youth. None of it made much sense to me as an adult, which was sad, as I pondered where I might have lost the path I once knew so well – a path of pure imagination, of whimsy and fantasy and make-believe. It was a path that led to woodland fairies perched among polka-dotted toadstools, where miniature cows moved and mooed on mounds of verdant moss, and dolls poked their heads up from frazzled piles and demanded finer frocks.
Today, there is little room or time for such happy frivolity, unless I’m spending time with my niece and nephew. Perhaps this is why people love children so much – they remind them of being young. Even though part of me feels I’ve lost my way, I still hold onto an active imagination, an appreciation of the whimsical, a respect of the power of make-believe. There is a magic that only exists in the mind. The fact that it isn’t real only makes it more potent. It cannot be stopped or limited or killed. It lives with all the creatures we conjure in our heads – in another, unreachable land, a place to which only a dreamer might gain entrance.
