This ‘Work in Progress’ could well serve as an accurate depiction of what it looks like in my brain. I am a thinker, an imaginer, a dreamer and an artist.
My friend sometimes looks at my work and says “Where on earth do you get your inspiration?”.
The answer may be as simple as “The dream I had last night” (which usually is followed by the comment: “What weird dreams you have!”), it may be that the inspiration has followed a complex thought path down a rabbit hole into a world completely different to the one I’m actually living in or it may simply be, as in this morning, from how my crocs looked when I put them on this morning (They reminded me of the sets they used on a TV show in the 70’s called ‘Space 1999’ that I absolutely devoured as a kid!).
In my life I have suffered unimaginable pain, loss and disappointment and I think part of me developed a highly active imagination as a self-preservation mechanism, even from early on in my childhood. Now I’m older (50 to be exact), ‘life reflection’ also now adds an element to my imagination.
As a child, I loved movies (and still do!), I devoured the characters and plots from cheesy science fiction movies, to musicals where it was always sunny and happy (apart from’The Wizard of Oz’!).
On that note, I blame Disney for an unrealistic image of love, marriage and career advancement. 😜
The negative aspects of an over active imagination are anxiety, depression, irrational fears, insomnia, exhaustion, over-thinking, delusion and sometimes, an inability to differentiate from reality and fiction (I dream whole conversations have occurred between myself and my friends and then get frustrated when I think they’ve completely forgotten what ‘we’ discussed).
I am dyslexic too. This affects my memories, thought process, time-keeping (whole days can pass in the blink of an eye, it’s not unusual to find that I’ve completely missed meals and am still crafting at 10pm at night), ability to read (I was a late starter, but thanks to bags and bags of ‘Famous Five’, ‘Secret Seven’ and ‘Enid Blyton’ books donated by Mrs Goodwin, an elderly neighbour when I was young, I soon caught up).
The positives far out weigh the negatives though.
I can literally find inspiration in EVERYTHING!
I awoke this morning to hear hailstone on my window (we are currently being visited by two storms with rain, hail, snow and winds of 100 mph), it reminded me of a dream I had when I was in my 20’s where I had been dreaming of a hailstorm with hailstone the size of tennis balls crashing through the car roof.
Sometimes people think I’m staring at them, especially strangers, (if this happens to you, take heart that it means you look particularly radiant today and you have just triggered a thought process - I’m no longer actually staring at you - the way the sun caught your hair probably reminded me of wheat fields in ‘Little House on the Prairie’ or your eyes in that light looked like galaxies and my imagination has whizzed off to explore half a dozen planets).
When I was at school, the headmaster, Mr Apthomas, encouraged us to imagine when listening to the classical music he played in assembly. ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ is an utter favourite and even if the music is no longer playing, I only have to close my eyes to see the dancers and relive the plot.
I still listen to music every day now. Although what I listen to is defined by the activity that I am involved with. Painting usually calls for classical music, assemblage demands rock music, if I am working on a new project, then ‘Epic’ music on Youtube is my inspirational ‘go-to’.
I have a genuine ‘lust for life’ (you’re welcome to that ear-worm 😜). I love living, I love life and everything in it. I was the kid who made wormeries, and watched baby spiders hatch. I was the kid who examined the colours in flowers or watched the aerial dance of the migrating birds. And guess what? Through my love of gardening, I still do all those things and more.Every experience, every day, floods my imagination, and gives me new ideas. My problem is not what to do today, but how to pick out what to do today from the gazillion thoughts in my head…and its only 7am, I’ve only been awake for an hour…24 more hours of ‘gazillion’ thoughts to feed my imagination before I start my day again!
