Hope Darby Writings

Earlier today, I was reminded of something that happened when I was a kid. We lived on an Air Force Base, so it was not at all uncommon for kids to get together and take off playing, not to return home until the streetlights came on. It was safe. We would play hide-and-seek games that spanned two or three blocks, and our parents never worried.

One summer evening, the streetlights came on and my parents hadn’t seen me anywhere outside. They started looking for me. They went outside, yelled my name, asked my friends if they knew where I was, knocked on neighbors’ doors, everything. Right before my dad organized an impromptu search posse of neighborhood dads, my mother happened to ask, “Um, Reggie? Did we look in her bedroom?”

Sure enough, they thundered into the house, down the hall, and flung open my bedroom door. There I was, lying on my bed and writing in my journal. I’d been there for hours, no wonder they never saw me come in. I’d never gone out!

They can laugh about the story now, and it certainly taught them the lesson of checking my bedroom first, but I have to say that the memory made me a bit sad today. Why?

Well, back then I would write for hours. I filled notebook after notebook with poetry, stories, and thoughts. Sure, I watched my favorite cartoons and television shows, and I played outside a lot, but I was constantly writing. Constantly imagining. Constantly pretending.

Nowadays, though, I find myself struggling for ideas at times. For inspiration. For something to make me open my imagination. What happened?

Computers. DVRs. Whenever I get bored now, I can flip on the monitor or open my laptop, and immediately be entertained, without making the slightest effort. I don’t have to exercise my imagination, because thousands of other people do the imagining for me. I can get lost in their worlds, and never need to leave mine.

So how do we build our imaginations in this unconscious time? Leave the television off? Utilize some willpower and not click the Firefox button whenever I’m writing in MSWord? Or learn to blend the new with the old?

Hmmmm.