by Jenny Gibbons

Created on: May 14, 2009

I am currently unemployed, but for a small part time job. It's a common situation these days. I suppose I adjusted easily because I was already a bit of a starving artist to begin with. But more than ever, these long quiet days at home have reminded me why I write, and why writing is so important for so many people. The imagination is a powerful, powerful thing, and it would be a great loss for anyone to forget its potential.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself and my lack of opportunities to travel, see the world, experience adventure, etc. Then I remember how incredible a mind I'm equipped with. I'm not saying mine, in particular, is anything special. We all have such powers. But maybe I have a tendency to turn my imagination's amplitude up to the max. It's why sometimes I'd rather lose myself in a book, or perhaps a very good TV show, than participate in a party or some related outing. It's why my heart can soar, through the clouds and beyond, when I'm not doing anything but sitting at the computer with some headphones on.

I value experience, very much. Experience feeds the imagination. Imagination can launch itself from the footpads that experience provides. But they don't work the other way around.

I have always wanted to fly. If I could be a superhero, and pick one power, flying would be it (or a power that would allow me to fly, consequentially). But today, listening to some music, I closed my eyes and imagined flying. Truly, truly, imagined it. You could argue it's not as good as the real thing. Probably not. But if you lose yourself to your imagination completely, it can almost accomplish it for you.

Put on a good piece of music and close your eyes. Imagine yourself high above the world, with nothing at all between yourself and the earth far below. Your head spins. You can feel your hair lashing your forehead like a whip. You want to close your eyes, because they burn with the dryness of the rushing air and the lash of your hair, but you can't, because the sight below is too mesmerizing. Lakes are the size of nickels, gleaming silver and blue. Mountains are the size of your kneecaps, flexing to maintain balance behind you, rippling as the wind combs the trees. What is balance, when you're flying? It's the flow of wind slicing over your fingertips, pouring around you, embracing you in its rush, roaring in your ears, even as it whispers, carrying you like a stream, while threatening to drown you every moment.

Writing is almost as good to me as experiencing something. It may exist only in my head. If I can share it with other people, that makes it a little more real, and that makes me happier. But even on days when I'm really discouraged, and I write and I write and I write and I feel that my voice will never be heard, I have to remember what writing does for me. It lets me live something. It lets me be somewhere else. It lets me be someone else. The imagination is a powerful, powerful thing.

And at least we have that.

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