Imagination Keeps Me Young......

Unlocking the Magic......

When we're young it seems that all things are possible.  We have that special childhood power that keeps all the monsters under the bed, nightmares end with the rising of the sun and we think everyday smells like pancakes on Sunday.    We like to surround ourselves with the stories of enchanted forests, shimmering faeries and magical elves because as a child we are eternal optimists in a sea of doubt and these little characters are able to take us on many magical adventures without even leaving our backyards

When I was a kid my dad and I shared a fondness for the outdoors, especially the garden.  Many times I would sit in an old apple tree and watch my dad spend countless hours turning the soil and navigating streams of water down each row. He was amazing at finding something magical in the simplest of things....like a knot hole in a tree or an abandoned gopher hole. 

He loved to make up stories that would involve these special places creating all kinds of characters who lived there.  I used to get teased because for the longest time I thought that our tomatoes were actually grown by a family of badgers that my Dad had told me lived at the edge of the garden.  It had to be true cause my Dad said it was.....
He also convinced me that his pet pig, Geoff, (yes, he actually had a pig named Geoff) was a King from another land who was hiding from an evil wizard so he was a pig during the day and a handsome King at night.  Yep, you guessed it I camped out at the barn to watch him change but always fell asleep before it happened....As you probably have guessed I was quite the gullible child but was never lacking when it came to my imagination!

Daydreaming was a constant companion and with my Dad's help we found many uses for those day dreams.  We would build Faerie houses!  Much to my Mom's dismay dirt and I were the best of friends and spending all day digging in it was heaven to me.  I remember building mounds of dirt with tunnels and twig porches and wooden doors.  Dad would use his hoe and sculpt a winding brook to run past our little houses.  We spent hours building pebble fences and planting flowers around our Faerie houses....they were good times! 

Life was not always a walk in the park and like all families we had our ups and downs....but I choose to only remember the happy times and the time I spent with my Dad in his beloved garden were some of my happiest.  I contribute my vivid imagination to all those "garden story times" we had so many years ago.  I still build Faerie houses and with each twig and pebble I use I smile and remember the apple tree, tomatoes grown by badgers,  my Dad and Geoff the Swine King!