I<\/span>\u2019m not imaginative. Never have been. So when I learn that the library where I work was going to host a workshop \u201cUnleash Your Imagination,\u201d I decided that this was exactly<\/em> what I needed. On the appointed day, I joined twenty some women of different ages who crowded around a large table with a workshop leader at its head. The first thing the leader, a well-into-middle-age woman, told us to do was to relax. This made a lot of sense to me, for how can you unleash anything if you are tense? Except, I have never<\/em> managed to relax successfully. As soon as I hear somebody telling me to close my eyes, my eyelids begin to flutter, then my nose begins to itch, and when I am supposed to relax my lower body, the itch migrates to my back.<\/p>\n

This time was no different, so I soon gave up any attempt at relaxation. Everybody else sat with their eyes closed and their bodies limp, and two women even had their mouths open\u2013kind of like people who had died without anyone around to push their chins up. Then, the workshop leader said, \u201cImagine yourself in a place where you feel peaceful and free. Smell the smells, enjoy the taste, admire the colors, and caress the surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immediately, everybody\u2019s expression turned even more serene and the two women with their mouths open began making little chewing movements. I had a hard time finding a beautiful place to imagine myself, so instead, I thought of the village of Williams Bay on Geneva Lake, where my daughter, my two grandchildren, my husband and I visited a month earlier. On account of allergies, I couldn\u2019t really smell anything, and the only sound I remembered was the annoying cry of seagulls. As for colors, it was already dusk when we got there, so everything looked kind of gray and yellowish. Still, the grandchildren liked the beach, so it was nice anyway.<\/p>\n

By the time I got really comfortable with my memories, our leader commanded, \u201cNow, open your eyes and draw the scene you just imagined.\u201d Everybody sprang to action and began drawing rather complex scenes with trees, waterfalls, and butterflies, while all I could manage was two lines: one, wavy, for the lake, and the other one, straight, for the beach. Behind the straight line, I put several small blots for seagulls and several bigger blots — with sticks indicating arms and legs — for my family. I was about to start coloring my granddaughter\u2019s hair, when the workshop leader stopped our artistic endeavors and asked the participants to tell the group about their drawings and what they represented.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Everybody began sharing a paradise-like vision of herself sitting, lying, or walking in a garden with singing fountains, in mountains covered with light puffy clouds, or on a boat lit by the setting sun. There was only one lady there whose imagination took her to a twisted Dali-esque landscape she had once hallucinated in a morphine-induced state while recovering from surgery.<\/p>\n

After all the other participants had spoken, the leader\u2019s gaze turned to me. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, but \u2026 no sound came out, for instead of a warm and fuzzy, dream-like vision, I pictured my grandchildren running by the water\u2019s edge, shouting, scaring seagulls, and spattering us with wet sand. Then I heard myself telling them a joke I heard earlier that day, \u201cDo you know why seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay, they\u2019d be called bagels!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I saw my seven-year-old grandson turn to his younger sister, point to the seagulls flying over Williams Bay, and say, \u201cLook at those bagels, Mary!\u201d<\/p>\n

My four-year-old granddaughter, who must have decided that \u201cbagels\u201d was the proper thing to call these birds, ran in the direction of their flight shouting, \u201cBagels, bagels!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can\u2019t understand that joke,” my daughter said. “You shouldn\u2019t have told it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s about time for her to learn about humor,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so,” my husband said. “She\u2019s too young.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really,” I said. “I told her about Winnie the Pooh and she laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the three of us began arguing about stages in child development \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to share your vision with us?\u201d\u00a0 The leader said, smiling encouragingly.<\/p>\n

I looked at her through the cloud of my memories and, to my surprise, a sudden pain pierced through my chest, halting my breathing, and lodging somewhere between my shoulder blades. And as if I were reading the story of my life, I suddenly knew that that casual evening when everybody was healthy and good natured, though it might have lacked beautiful colors, enticing sounds, or profound words, was better than anything I could ever imagine. It was simple and it was precious, and it will never be repeated again...<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry,\u201d I said, shrinking under the gazes directed at me from all sides. \u201cI have no vision to share. I couldn\u2019t unleash my imagination. I only unleashed my memories.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

….took her to a twisted Dali-esque landscape…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3074,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}