Using Your Imagination

When I was young dad would say 'use your imagination'.  I have always thought I don't have much of one.  However, when I see things I get totally inspired and am able to re-create ideas with little twists of my own.  But I cannot claim to have done anything original.  In fact, no one has for a long time.  We are able to take things and improve on them according to our own perceptions.


What I choose to do with ideas and what someone else chooses to do with the same idea will turn out completely different.  Our imagination is at work.  When we create something, albeit based on someone else's idea, our idea blossoms based on feedback from our family and peers.  I have a memory of an instance which would have fed my artistic leanings from the very beginning.


My brothers had to take summer school in high school, the need for credits to graduate I assume. I didn't want to be left out so I enrolled in a speed reading course and an art class. The art class stays with me to this day, some of the fundamental instruction and the free form projects we accomplished.  My drawing was juvenile at best, a page of rain drops colliding - clustered together, so that all you had on the page was a series of tears.  It was interesting at best.  But Dad looked at it with encouragement.  He told me to use my imagination.  


With that in mind I built on the idea and created a series of faces.  Still juvenile; but the difference was someone encouraged me, saw that I had the potential to create something just a bit unique.

So much from Dad stays with me as a reminder to encourage those around us. His encouragement fed my desire for approval.  I will forever be grateful for his perception of what I could do. What we create may not come from an original idea, but our creativity will make the ending results unique.  Thank you, Dad.

The Sun Is Shining

Autumn Day

The sun is shining.  As the rays streak across the yard something needs to be done where ever I look.  The lawn needs to be mowed; rose beds are choked by weeds and tall grass.  The feeder for the hummingbirds is freshly filled, but I can see cobwebs glinting in the light across the deck.

The sun is shining.  It's reflected on the broken glass all over the garage floor.  The concrete merely helps the shards hold their position.  I know where the broom is, but what about the dustpan?

In the house the sun glints through the windows, highlighting the unwashed laundry; clearly the carpet needs to be vacuumed.  A couple of coffee cups, liquid drained out earlier in the day, sit quietly on the counter, waiting for a worthwhile amount of dishes to fill the sink.  The bathrooms?  Well, that calls for plain old elbow grease.

The light almost glows as my daughter and grandchildren walk to the park to spin in the sun, or swing in the breeze.  I take the opportunity to sit on the computer for awhile...no one to compete with.  When the they return I step up to start dinner -- Thai food this evening, but I hear  Paysh and Darcie banter with the words 'addiction' as they back out of my Facebook page and do some computing of their own.  I am not sure if their words appropriately refer to me.

I have looked forward to my 3-day weekend.  I have longed to paint, to study techniques and try my hand at a couple of new steps.  Such ideas I thought through the days as this welcome break approached!

My 'zone' is the dining room table, computer on one hand with an instructional dvd playing, or paused so I can keep up.  The rest of the table would be littered with books open to appealing lessons, my water color paints waiting to feel the brush coax them gently onto the paper, 140 lb cold pressed is easiest.  I lose time and listen to myself while sitting there.

But, as the saying goes sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or in this case, the needs of the one.  I feel the beckoning of the life altering warmth of this day.  After all, the sun is shining.