It’s Wednesday afternoon and my first week and a half of school is done. Having a week done and in the book, also means it is back to hitting the books. However, sitting in my dimly lit bedroom I find a pen in my hand, not my book. My book is laying sprawled open, and looking rather lonely on the ground next to me. I made it through the publisher information; the table of contents, pushed pasted the thank-yous and the acknowledgements all the way to the title page, where I was stopped dead in my tracks, “On Death and Dying”, in slightly desensitizing cold bold black font. (Rhyme and alliteration, makes me smile, I am such a nerd.) Just the title of the book set my mind off in a million different directions, seeking to put a finger on the abstract, pen to the subjective and do I am not exactly sure what. More or less the simple four words that composed the title of this book set my imagination loose, free.
My imagination has been running rather rampant the last few weeks. Lately I have had a roaring appetite for short stories, in an attempt to fulfill this craving I have read James Joyce’s Dubliners, and am working my way through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age, both amazing works. Joyce has lead me to spend my evenings desiring to be an unknown character crawling through the underbelly of Dublin seeking some form of gratification, satisfaction, and an answer Joyce seem to never allow to exist; a cruel God to his fictional world. Most recently I have found my self frequently in the roaring twenties, perpetually pursuing pleasure; an eloquently named elegantly dressed member of a generation of faux passion.
And so reader I have a question for you. When’s the last time you let your imagination get away from you? When’s the last time you allowed fiction to become your momentary reality? Or allowed an author to whisk you away to a grand world, that is simply not this world?
As you struggle with the midweek hump, and the doldrums of your daily reality, I would encourage you to allow your mind to march to the drumbeat of your imagination. Read a short story, pick up a book and see how far your imagination can take you from where you are seated right now.
