In the world of clown, literal
thinking is funny. You tell a clown to
duck, and they start quacking, you say, “Split!”, and they try to do one; and we all know what happens when the words “walk
this way” are used. Comedy like that
plays on the fact that there are subtleties, that there can be more than just
one meaning to a word or an expression, and that sometimes a phrase can have a
connotation that seemingly has no relationship to the actual words used. How many of us have actually been in a ship,
much less with someone else, and yet say, “I’m in the same boat.” The words and phrases are a stand in for
something else, symbols that our minds de-code and then understand.
Sounds complex - this “decoding”,
doesn’t it? So how do those of us who don’t
work in the military cipher division figure this stuff out? The imagination. That lovely little (or hopefully, not so
little)e part of our mind that sees between the lines, interprets that there’s
more than black and white, and creates what is not literally there. We all have them, but just like some of us
have not been acquainted with our psoas muscle in a while (it’s the BIG muscle
that wraps around from your lower back, into your groin, and connects the top
of you to the bottom half of you, and is used in every step you take), they are
woefully under used. And like a muscle
which is not worked out, the imagination can wither.
I wish I could say that I see this
withering only in adults, but sadly, what moves me to write about this now is
that I have seen it at younger and younger ages. Just today, I saw a child of seven or so not
able to pretend to be ANYTHING they wanted.
More, and more, I see a sort of deadness of the imagination, that makes
me want to jump inside their brains and paint messy, out of the line pictures,
OR dress up like a loin and ROAR!!!!
What frightens me is not that, “Gee, this kid is never going to be able
to imagine enough to be in their school play, or write a short story for a
homework assignment.” It’s that without
the ability to see more than what is evident and literal; these kids grow up
missing so much of life. To quote the Little Prince “That which is essential is
invisible to the eye.” To not be able to
take the folktales that the ancients have blessed us with, and think just
because they may not be “true”, makes them less real is a – and I know I’m
using a heavy word for this, but I feel it – TRAGEDY!
In our work at the Morristown
Juvenile Detention Center and Shelter, we four storytellers, see it over and
over again. We watch these young people listen to our
tales, with more attention that I get any place else I perform – and that is no
lie – but they are unable to understand that while there may not be a real
mystical tree, or demon with ten heads, or a place where people’s wishes come
true, it doesn’t mean that these stories have nothing to do with their
lives. Time and time again, we are
astonished that these bright young people, seem unable to make the leap that
the dark woods may not be an actual forest, but perhaps represents a place
inside oneself that is somber, cold, and sad, or that the old woman at the side
of the road offering wisdom might be the voice you hear inside of yourself,
called your intuition.
Just last month, in THE MOST
uncomfortable storytelling sessions I have ever had (and may it always stay the
MOST uncomfortable), a young man – bright and articulate, could not see the
metaphors and symbolism in the stories to such a degree, he was angry at us for
wasting his time, and, I felt he was saying, lying to him. My fellow storyteller (Paula Davidoff), and I
tried – she a lot more clearly than I - I have to say, to get him to understand
the meanings and connections that could be found in the stories he had RAPTLY
listened to, but the more we talked, the more he pushed back. For him there was no “grey” – all black and
white.
That conversation did two things to
me – it saddened me, and then, in the same way I have always responded since I was
a teen, and was told to do something I didn’t want to do – it made me more
determined! It made me see, even more,
the value of storytelling and folktales, and it reinforced in me a sense of
purpose. I’m not a shrink, a social
worker, a classroom teacher, or a guidance counselor, but I am an AVID user of
my imagination, and I intend to use that skill to reach who I can, whenever I
can. It may not always work, we tellers
may not always break through, but as I watch this epidemic of
“no-imaginationitis”, I know I have to do something, and luckily for me I have
the ammunition of the fabulous folktales from a multitude of lands to use. And I know that out there, there are
storytellers, librarians, teachers, moms, dads, aunties, and grandparents that
take up this cause. So, here are my
closing words to those of you who see the spread of “No-imaginationitis” in our
fine land. Take the kids you can
and reach in and draw them out – dance,
paint, read, dress up, EXPRESS!!
Imagination is not a skill that should go the way of the dinosaurs. Let’s help kids evolve into human beings with
rich, colorful imaginative inner lives, that will lead them to deep, meaningful
outer lives.
Got a little preachy there at the
end, I know, but I believe it all.
Thanks for reading!!! Julie Pasqual
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