I was very proud of my friends and really happy that the
teacher helped organize this. First of
all, I’m proud of them for writing the book and getting it published because it
takes courage to put a little piece of yourself out there for judgment. I’m also proud that they came to the school. They looked so at home in front of the kids.
If I had seen a presentation like this when I was a kid, it
might not have taken me as long to get the courage up to start sharing the
stories floating in my head. I thought
artists, actors and writers were all tremendously gifted people who were identified
at an early age and if no one was encouraging you (by which I mean
professionally training you) by the time you started school then you were
probably never going to do it. A flawed
conception, I admit, but one which took some work to overcome.
My family was always very practically oriented. When I said I wanted to be an artist, my
parents asked what I was going to do to earn a living. Because art was good and something people
should do, but it wouldn’t pay the bills.
Now this is tried and true advice in the vast majority of situations but
I think it was applied a little prematurely.
If a five year old says he wants to be a fire-engine when he grows up,
you don’t talk about the difficulty of animate-inanimate
transmogrification. Instead you invite
him to use his imagination, talk about what he would do as a fire truck, secure
in the knowledge that next week will be a different dream.
When I was pregnant, I was determined to encourage my
children in whimsy, silliness and imagination.
The practical world crushes dreams at an astounding rate, so I wanted to
make sure their dreams were resilient and, more importantly, always
regenerating. It doesn’t matter how many
dreams are crushed if you can always find your way back for more.
Ironically, my children are very practical people. But I’ve still snuck some whimsy in
there. They laugh freely and without
self-consciousness. They dance as if no
one is watching and sing as if no one is listening. Freedom to dream is a wonderful gift and I
hope some children were able to pick it up today.
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