How Does Your Brain Do That?

“How does your brain do that?!” my grandson exclaimed while we looked at the bleach splashes on my favorite tee shirt. He said it was ruined. I said I thought I’d make snowflakes out of them, thus his bewilderment.

     I don’t know how my brain does it, but I know when It began, the seeds of it at least. When I was about three, my daddy made me a leaf house while raking leaves. There was an outline for the walls, a tiny opening for the door, and a bigger one for the window. A big pile was the sofa, and a little pile was the chair. From then on, I saw possibilities. Scraps of fabric became gowns for my Troll dolls, and shoe boxes became doll houses. All children do this. I’m just lucky to know when it started.

     I also know the day my imagination was unleashed and given permission to travel without boundaries—Wasson High School, drama production of Finian’s Rainbow. Bonnie Paris was our teacher, and I was in charge of the costumes. Bonnie took me out into the house, and we stood in the dark, watching the rehearsal of the wedding scene under the stage’s lights.

Like one of Shakespeare’s witches, she reached out her long fingers as if conjuring up a spell and bid me to imagine. I have to admit I thought, “How does your brain do that?” The machine-made mist drifted around the actor’s feet, the light from above streaming through the prop-built trees, and I saw it. What I needed to create to add to the magic of the actors and the sets. I can still feel the smile stretch across my face as the joy of creation bubbled up from my core.

     Not a month of the last 48 years as an interior designer has gone by when I haven’t called on Bonnie and her spell to help me find the right design solution. Now, as an author, I use that same freedom to wander the paths and trails of the Enchanted and Forbidden Woods, following my characters to see what they are up to. It’s how my brain does that now.

     What would the world be like without the imagination of children? Think about it. Imagination powers the arts and the sciences, math, parenting and romance, criminal investigations, and all manner of building. Our world would stop. We must encourage imagination to expand in every direction. There must never be walls or boundaries around imagination – it must be allowed to create. It doesn’t matter that we don’t know where it comes from or how it works. We must search for it and blow it into the wind like dandelion seeds.

     Build a leaf house, make forts, dollhouses, and clothes, and above all – color outside the lines. Imagine and Create.