Here in the forests of my imagination . . .
What wondrous light through yonder branches gleams? Would that it were the opalescent glow of glimmering brilliance coming to infiltrate my idle brain. Or perhaps, an itinerant faerie spirit heading my way, jeweled sceptre alit with inspirational powers to be bestowed on my waiting brow with only the lightest of touches. Even the wan incandescent light that flickers in welcome warmth when someone stops by and drawls, ‘Whooooa, cool poem, dude!‘ is an apparition that I welcome in these woods.
But left to my own devices, I am often content to play hide-and-seek with the absurd and ridiculous denizens with whom I myself people the copses and clearings. It’s hard to be bored when in the world of my imaginings I might just as well see a party of rhinoceri dining daintily on macarons and sipping mimosas as find the standard woodland chirpy-birds and curly-tailed possums. And of course I can find plenty of entertainment in the latter, should my rare white rhino friends fail to materialize on the occasion.
The who-what-when-where-why approach of old-time journalism is hardly limited, but so often is put to service in creating dull worlds that have no scintillation or silver-lined possibility of their own. Why should I merely recount the facts, if my friends and compatriots have the same at their own fingertips or floating in the ether encircling their own fevered brows? I feel much more compelled, drawn (and quartered) by the fantastical and unreal, and that doesn’t mean that I must limit my contact with the quotidian. In my view, the real world and everyday experience are both bursting with nonsense and bizarre occurrences that would challenge the sanity of anyone willing to look just slightly under the surface, a tiny bit off of the center of the frame. It’s this singing netherworld of oddity and mystery, of hilarity and not-yet-discovered realms of the heart and mind, that pulls me into its mystical swirl and mesmerizes me.
I am astounded when I hear tell of people admonishing artists and creative folk to give up their wastrel ways and do something Productive. Where these same critics expect inventions or discoveries of import, let alone life-enhancing pleasures and spiritual inspirations, to emerge if not from creative work and play I am unable to guess.
I’ve long since left it to others to describe what they tout as Fact and confirmed Truth. There are endless phalanxes of politicians and scientists and religious leaders, hover-parents and bosses, dictators and dullards, all of whom readily offer their convictions of reality whether I ask them to or not, so I learned that I’d much rather stick to my own version of reality and just see where it takes me.
Does this approach expose me to ridicule and censure? Of course it does. Anything anyone else tells you ought to be taken with an entire inland sea of salt, if it keeps you from swallowing nonsense wholesale. I certainly don’t believe everything I say!
But I did learn, when I bundled up my outsized cravings for outside affirmation in the dense wrappings of uneasy reality and flung them all out the casement, that any reality is somewhat overrated. That the lilac scented porpoises leaping in my own candy-colored seas were not only good company but sometimes took me along to actual places of learning and wholesome connection with genuine people willing to dive into alternate worlds too. And that I grew more deeply convinced that nobody is in such dire need of the strictly factual that their lives can’t be enriched, like mine, by the meandering, iridescent, depthless, deathless joys of curiosity and invention and hope.
. . . and away I swam, bathing in the limpid phosphorescence of wonderment . . .
Art-Colored Glasses 
Excellent! While reading this I had this vision dancing in my head of a rhino tea party with everyone attendant in full formal Victiorian garb, much like My Fair Lady at Ascot!
Oh yes, count me in! I will wear my wide-brimmed hat and perhaps you could bring some of those lovely flowers you photograph for a nice bouquet and we’ll all behave with great correctness until we start falling off our various chairs laughing. That’s my kind of tea party in (ahem!) a nutshell.
Bravo Kathryn, I agree with you 100%, there is no point in looking further than yourself for affirmation because seldom will you find it, and when you do it’s usually from the people who love you and then you conclude they’re prejudiced, so we can’t win can we…your own “candy colored seas” are looking pretty good right now… 🙂
Come and swim with me any time, dear lady! 🙂
I just had to look at this Kathryn and clearly your command of language is as great as your art! And I quite agree – if I’ve got it right – that we can only follow our own course, we can only see the world/universe through our own eyes, and that, in a very real sense, it all exists only for us individually. Therefore we can only follow our own path, there really is no other way. You put this more eloquently than me!
And what wonderfully expressive art, too. I’m impressed.
I have to be honest and give proper credit: more often than not, it’s the language and art that command *me*, and I just jump on and go along for the ride. 😉 But it’s wonderful to me that there are people like you and me enjoying such alternate routes to reality and that we can share them with each other. Thank you for the kind comments, David!
You have a gift and you share it so wonderfully. I smile, close my eyes, and see again.
Then I’m doing what I love best, dear Bella! You do the same for me too, so I thank you. We may all speak our own versions of it, but we do speak the same language, I think, after all!
Kathryn once again beautiful pictures. I envy you your imagination and I love the visions you create with words.
I love that you come and share them with me, dear friend! And that you let me in on your wonderful views of the world too. So comforting to find connections even in what makes each of us unique!
Go free little bird!! You are wild!! c
Sometimes I’m a birdbrain and sometimes I lay an egg. But most of the time I’m glad to be able to soar over it all and see things from my own perspective! 😀
Bravo, cherie! I, for one, have already informed my offspring that my grasp of reality is tenuous, even now, and that when am old, they will have to visit me within the confines of the world that I create…And I don’t mean ‘The Home’…
Somehow I suspect yours and mine will at least be parallel universes, so I’ll look forward to our times giggling in the rocking chairs just as much as we do online now! 😀
Curiosity, invention and hope the words I needed today. Thank you so much Kathryn for your kindness 🙂
I think those are words we all need for everyday use, so I am very happy to share them with you, especially if it can lighten difficult days. 🙂
Phosphorescence… did you know there is a little known place in the world where one can swim and these teensy little creatures light up with your movement as you splash about and the sea around you glows (it’s called bioluminescence) Your words and paintings take me there…
I’ve heard of such things, yes. Wouldn’t that be incredibly magical! It’s a wonderful imagination on *your* part that allows you to extrapolate from my mundane words and images in order to swim with bioluminescent beings! Thanks for taking me along too. 🙂
Lovely lovely lovely…so much loveliness! I think I am going to cry. LOVE your blog!!
Thank you, Rama, what a sweet thing to say! I’m glad you’re here. I’m headed over to visit your blog too. 🙂
“I am astounded when I hear tell of people admonishing artists and creative folk to give up their wastrel ways and do something Productive. Where these same critics expect inventions or discoveries of import, let alone life-enhancing pleasures and spiritual inspirations, to emerge if not from creative work and play I am unable to guess.”
These are the same people who take funding from the arts in schools, never stopping to consider that the wastrel dreamers are the ones who make the music they put onto their iPods, design the shoes and uniforms that they wear onto the playing fields, draw the lines on those lovely autos they simply must have and plan the walls that hold the roofs over their heads. I’ll keep dreaming and stay unproductive, thank you very much!
Thanks for staying the course! I guess I’d much rather it be us wild and woolly creative people that take over the world than dimwits that don’t appreciate any deviations from the norm anyway! 😀
What an excellent read! I come here, never knowing what to expect. I leave here with a smile every time. Thank you for that. 🙂
I’m so pleased you feel that way, good sir! I get many of my shots-of-warmth from “visiting your family” over at your blog, too, so it’s a mutual benefit society. 🙂
Exceptional acrylics on canvas, blues, purples, just lovely; vision of rhinos in Victorian attire at a tea party (comment above), strange but interesting…
I’m glad you like the paintings–and don’t worry about those oddball partygoers, they’re in another dimension anyway!