my place of imagination

A little body, almost motionless, quiet in the embrace of a caring mother. On the road of life while yet so young. I was three months old and already in such motion. I remember the same journey every Sunday for many years. Almost a pilgrimage. Perhaps a metaphor for the pilgrimage of my soul in the years ahead, always longing for the places where I had been before. I remember the warm fabric seats in the old car. And the inquisitive girl always looking out the window. Tree after tree, prairie after prairie. Once in a while an eagle softly floating between the vigorous olive trees. Cows, yellow, and some bulls here and there…just arid. I remember that place. The long Sunday drives between places of love and faith challenged my eye to see the unseen. I became more observant of nature, imagining the conversations between the cows, guessing if they were thirsty, dwelling in the beauty of the white horses and trying to spot the most well-crafted stork nests. In the indwelling of a natural habitat, my imagination explored so many places.

Years later, after a last trip through the prairies, we found ourselves at the pink house built on the top of the mountain; a dry, hot, orange mountain. The scenery was different, but not less fertile for my imagination. There we spent many days of our childhood, playing, running after the ducks and the chickens, mixing water from the old bin with dirt and pretending we were cooking like grandma. From the top of the mountain, I could not only see the vast sea, but also the palace of old princesses and queens. A mystical place, mostly covered by green, voluptuous trees.

Every day for more than ten years, I sat at the breakfast table in our apartment, facing the big kitchen window. And there it was in all its splendour…the mountain with the yellow, orange and red palace on the summit. A place for princesses and princes; a place for imagination, a place to discover my own place in the world; to dream big, to imagine all the other places where I would go and have old stories to tell. A place that would later reflect the way I connect with places.

Some days the view was bright as the sun, while other days we woke up to a palace enveloped in a foggy mist. As I contemplate the palace in my own mind, I realize how this place has shaped my creative mind and attached it to the past. In the palace, everything smelled old and muggy. There was this comfort in the walls that carried the weight of the past, of the lives lived there. There was this humidity in the air too. The memorabilia was old from past centuries. The little snail stairs in every corner hid the many stories of secret loves and confessions left untold. There was a magic in the misty air. As I grew up, places became not just places. There was this mysticism associated with them; almost a certain degree of idolatry. The mist which typically embraced the palace can be seen as a metaphor for much of the way I have grieved over the loss of important places in my life; as if with the loss of these places, a part of me, a part of my story and imagination, just like the mist, ends up falling down, and tearing the land, burying my own tears and loss through the cracks of the earth.

With a violent and unexpected change of scenery and the palace behind me, a whole new world of places was given to me; to explore, make sense of and enjoy. Months after I crossed the Atlantic to live in Canada, there was again this sense of mist and darkness because of the loss of so many places dear to my heart…places of memories, joy and transformation…it was as if I was grieving the fact that I got to imagine less now that my life seemed motionless, stuck in one place… I was without a past shaping the way I connected to the land; without memories, stories to tell or photographs to remember. In many moments, it almost seemed like my past had melted with the scorching heat of the prairies. A past buried like the deep roots of the trees that embraced the palace. Roots that had swallowed all the places that were now so distant and empty.

In the last few years, though, I have discovered that this kind of connection with places was more degrading for my heart than good. And so I had to reinvent the way I would appropriate the places where I lived. The mist no longer represents this sense of loss I felt before. It does, however, represent a sense of opportunity, mystery, and freedom to reinvent, to create. In one way, the memory of the sun kissing the palace of princesses and princes is like a metaphor for my change of heart. That memory shines light on my own imagination and opens my mind to create something new in a new place. This truth has allowed me to be free like the eagles over the prairies and run wild like the horses in the place of my imagination.

The palace of princesses and princes, of kings and queens, of mist, magic and imagination has become my own place of imagination every time I have to set a table for family and friends. Every time I get to set up a table and prepare home for others, I think about that beautiful banquet table in the palace. This has not only helped me to cherish the past, but also to incorporate it as I recreate life in new places. And when a foggy mist covers my place of imagination, I have learned to dwell in all the mystery, possibility and creativity attached to all that I know from the past. I have been reminded that even if far away, these places of old shape who I am becoming, and that they will never be lost in my imaginary. My palace of princesses and princes, of kings and queens, has rehabilitated my soul in moments of great disconnectedness and loss, allowing me to see the sun shining over my place of imagination; and there, making me able to freely create again, by uncovering the secrets hidden in the thick, old and muggy walls of my creative heart.