What happens to our imaginations. Tell me that. When exactly do we get in a big damn hurry to throw ourselves into the real adult world? When is the moment that puberty takes us over and we become suddenly aware or all the "important" things? Today I sat on my balcony and watched these two kids play in the grass. They ran around, they played games, pretended they were different animals and people. They exercised their imaginations. It was thrilling to watch and it made me jealous. I want to know where I lost my imagination. Did I leave it behind somewhere? Is it sitting in some lost and found box? Seriously, the only way I exercise my imagination now is in the stories I write, which I haven't done in two years, and in some of the teaching I do/have done. Those kids live for the amazing things in their heads. They don't live in their heads like I do, they start with ideas in their heads and make them real by acting them out and becoming the characters they think up. Its an instantaneous thing. Why don't we do that more as adults? Artists get some of that, painters, even actors some. Writers, good ones, get to use that stuff a lot, if they are lucky. The rest of the people stay ingrained in their "real" worlds of a job, of work, of television to watch. Actually the closest I think most people come to using their imaginations as adults is through television and movies because they totally by into the falsely created world they are watching, the characters, everything. They have to pretend its all real, like they are there in the movie or the show. But then they leave the theater and go back to their lives until they watch another movie.

Stagnant. That's the word of the day, stagnant. That's me right now. I'm not going anywhere, I'm stuck right here. I'm stagnant. I'm not writing any new stories. I found out today that my mind is stagnant. My imagination. I have to start using it again, I have to find something close to what those two kids have. I need that unadulterated freedom, free from limitations, free from others' opinions, free from responsibilities, free from false and stupid priorities, freedom to be totally free thinkers and let everything else go, to completely leave yourself. Those kids...those kids get it more than we do. I've always thought kids were more self-obsorbed simply because they didn't have enough of life experience to know anything else, now I'm not so sure. Maybe adults are the more self-obsorbed ones. Its hard to dissociate yourself from a situation, but kids do it with no problem, with no pre or post thought. I guess it could be b/c they are still unaware of their own places in the world. We can learn a lot from watching kids play. I need someone to go play with now.