Dear Reader:

I have been a “daydreamer believer” for as long as I have memory…far back into the recesses of childhood. I was that child in the classroom who was constantly caught staring out the windows turning clouds into shapes of animals…especially during arithmetic.

My cousins and siblings were all aware of it too…yelling things at me like “Mars to Becky….Mars to Becky…come inside, it’s time for supper.” (Always accompanied by peals of laughter)  I was always “zoning out” of reality in favor of imagination…or what psychologists today would call going into a “flow state” …which requires using the same part of the brain where creativity and imagination lie.

Creative types know, despite what their third-grade teachers may have said, that daydreaming is anything but a waste of time.

A little king dreams

Grandmother Wilson called me her little ‘lost lamb’ sometimes because she said I was always “woolgathering.”

It has only been as an adult that I have come to terms with being seen as “creative.” Before if I heard that term applied to me, I shook my head because I was just doing what I do. Creativity is the same thing as breathing to me…automated with no thought behind it…it is just who I am…me being me…and my thought processes being simply my thought processes.  I never realized that not everyone thinks the same way I think. Perhaps Steve Jobs best described it:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Last January when I decided that my 2017 word for the year would be “Listen” I was talking to Doodle about my choice on the phone. I told her that I could definitely be a better listener but my humble excuse was that as soon as someone on the other side of the “line” mentioned someone or something….my brain had already gone into action… connecting, connecting, and connecting the person or thing to a line from a movie or book, a personal experience, or a thought from a conversation. By the time it had run all the circuits I only halfway knew what the present conversation was about.

It makes me appear not to be listening…but in actuality …my thought waves are simply coming from a different perspective or another starting point. It is just how my mind works.

An old article on characteristics of creative people is what finally made me realize that “these were my people.” (I always thought I must be a little different…I was always more of a dreamer than an action figure….all my action took place in my mind, not through physical exercise or games.)

Creative people are:

*Daydreamers  * People Watchers  * Crave time-outs for Solitude  *Turn life’s obstacles around  *Love new experiences  * Are “Big Question” people filled with curiosity * Follow their True Passions   * Surround themselves with Beauty  *Connect the dots in life

*Sometimes, however, creative people can ‘do a number on themselves’ psychologically. Case in point. If I perceive an off-handed comment or gesture as being something more than it is…my imagination turns an innocuous remark or comment  into my own worst enemy. Even something I read in a fictional book can turn against me.  For example:

(I am now reading the third book in the Louise Penny detective series (the Cruelest Month) and am loving it…each one more than the last. Can hardly wait to finish one to start the next one.)

In this latest book the famous detective Gamache is trying to figure out what killed a woman who appeared to have been literally frightened to death…the detective discovers from listening to the coroner’s report that it appeared the victim had once had breast cancer and the cancer had come back…lesions were found on the liver. More importantly, the doctor goes on to report that she had “fairly severe heart damage, almost certainly from her breast cancer.” ( result of intensive chemo) It was her heart that gave out.

So here goes my imagination…”Her heart? (I stop and put down the book)…I’m on chemo…is my heart doing okay? No one has mentioned it…I close the book, turn off the lights and then play out a hundred scenarios of all the night monster health possibilities that could happen… collectively called the “What If” monsters. By the time I am finished…I feel palpitations coming on. I am my worst monster!

Yesterday I had my regular three-month check-up with my beloved doctor, Dr. Montoya, family practice physician, and all the lab work came back just fine. I even asked her about my heart and she said it was doing just what it was meant to do….beating to a regular beat at a regular pace. Blood pressure was good…overall she was quite pleased with the check-up. Whew! Calm down imagination…you can be a menace when allowed to run rampart.

So until tomorrow…Let us use our God-given creativity to commune with the One and Only Creator in our special sacred places; while letting our imagination be used to enhance our lives, not trouble them.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Anne stopped by to see how my check-up went and brought a banana pudding cupcake to celebrate! YUMMY! Thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers while I awaited the latest medical report!

 * Guess what I found in the window of the CVS pharmacy pick-up window? One of those cute little rocks circulating on Facebook. I noticed it while the window pharmacist got my prescriptions and asked her to get it for me. (my arms were too short)

I wouldn’t have known what it was except Colby had one the day she and her grandmother, Jo Dufford, stopped by and she explained the story and significance of it. So I passed it on to Anne (had stopped by to drop off a book) and told her about it and where I had found it…she’s going to put it on Facebook and drop it off for someone else too. The little rock will keep on rocking!