Welcome to Fantasy Island

Some days it feels like my imagination is taking steroids. It seems I can hardly keep up with recording the conceptual outline of stories that are writing themselves in my head. The other day, I had a vivid story come to life in my brain and I had no opportunity to write any of it down. Why? Because I was in the shower. Yeah, that happens all the time. I've thought maybe I should get some waterproof markers for those moments.

Then I had a better idea! The simplicity of it makes the whole idea flawless. All I need is a time warp portal.

Now before you scoff, let me point out that somewhere in the future someone may be dialing this date into their time machine. Think about that the next time you drive by someone dressed funny.

So here's how the time warp portal deal works. First, I get a story while ostensibly occupied. The shower is not the only place that catalyzes my imagination into light speed. In school it happened daily. I hate to mention safety committee meetings, or any of a plethora of painfully boring events, but there are a lot of times when this happens. Sometimes a whole story comes in an instant.

Next, I write what I remember afterwards. Then, I simply ride through that exact time again and again until I have all the details recorded.

You see, simple as promised!

There is really only one complication to the whole plan. I'm one time portal shy of pulling it off. However, I had a fascinating (lucid) dream the other day. It was about time portals and the ability to foray into the past and/or the future. In fact, it was so realistic … maybe it was an actual time warp event! Maybe my imagination is just playing tricks on me. On the other hand, that could explain why I have appeared to age considerably more than my wife. What if … what if I have actually been time traveling all along?

P.S. – This blog has been written today and scheduled to post tomorrow. When you read it, it will have been written yesterday and scheduled to post today. Now think about that time portal again.

Maybe Growing Up Is a Disease

It is well known among children that there are two distinct clans of mice. The Destroyers are those who chew up food containers in the pantry and leave nasty little messes around. They are lazy, house invaders, and, as their name implies, destructive. Then there are the Builders. They are the ones that help fix broken items and even clean up places that are difficult for people to reach. They live in tidy, well-ordered villages in the forest, and some families live near workshops where they assist in the trade.

Why adults have let this scientific fact escape their knowledge base is a great mystery. Perhaps the defining moment at which one becomes a grown-up is the point they lose track of that important fact.

Maybe the loss of imagination is not so much the point of growing up, but part of the collateral damage. Maybe growing up is a disease in itself.

I'm no expert on the subject, but I recall growing up once. There had not been a stress level when I was a kid. When our family was broke, we were broke. It was no big deal. I just pretended to be whatever I wanted to be.

Then for some crazy reason that escapes my memory, one day I decided I needed money. That day I became responsible for something. That must have happened sometime around the age of ten, maybe twelve. I don't actually remember. But that day the stress level began and has never let up.

Nowadays, it seems I have to intentionally channel the carefree attitude of that cute little kid from my ancient past to free up my mind. (And yes, I was actually cute once.) That may sound like escapism, but it certainly is not.

Even Jesus spoke about us having an attitude like little children. I realize He was making a point about the entirety of their trust. But the truth is, the reason we stress is we don't have that childlike trust. And the killer of imagination is stress.

Ironically, I find letting my imagination run free is very stress relieving. Somehow those two wheels of reason don't seem to be rotating in the same direction. Logically there are only two plausible conclusions. Either it doesn't work that way. Or, my imagination is a portal into another dimension.

While you read this, not far away, in a misty salt marsh behind wisps of Spanish moss, a colony of mice in a tidy village, built among the roots of an ancient cypress tree, were conducting an emergency meeting. An alligator had been spotted nearby and the mayor was concerned for the safety of their clan, especially the fishermen …