"Children expect nothing, therefore they see everything."
Or something like that. I remember those days. When I really thought that if I made a wish at the exact moment underneath the San Diego Bridge I would turn into a unicorn, or a mermaid. Or even better a unicorn AND mermaid. I never even needed an imaginary friend because my adventures alone were so much better than I could share with someone who was imaginary. I explored a new profession everyday, hopping between countries like borders were only lines in hopscotch. Night time was nothing more than a chance to dream, a new morning nothing but an opportunity to put those dreams into play.
Amalthea: But I'm always dreaming, even when I'm awake; it is never finished.
And then, it changed. Suddenly my imagination didn't work the same way. Instead of something that enriched my daily life, it became an escape from my life. And somehow the sweetness of imagining was lost. Don't get me wrong, I still loved my time in the different world my mind had created, but it was a different enjoyment than ever before.
Unicorn: I have forgotten that men cannot see Unicorns. If men no longer know what they're looking at, there may be other unicorns in the world yet, unknown, and glad of it.
Then the days came when my imaginations were criticized. When it was no longer ok for a 14 year old girl to play dress up and be one of the Queen Anne's hand maidens. Those were the days that I found public school is nothing like the place I had pretended to attend. The days when I was told women couldn't be Navy Seals. The very day I discovered that just because I could jump around the room or battle Captain Hook like Peter Pan, didn't mean that I was immune to growing up as he did.
Schmendrick: It's a very rare person who
is taken for what he truly is.
This was when I started to hide my imagination. I stopped writing in fear of my imagination being discovered. I worked towards more practical occupations such as Speech Therapy or a Legislative Secretary. I knew I would more than likely work for a few years, get married and have kids. I had hidden my imagination so far within me I forgot I had it.
Haggard: You may come and go as you please. My secrets guard themselves. Will yours do the same?
One chilly October Day I began to write again. Ironically the day after I watched The Last Unicorn. My favorite childhood movie. Quotes from that movie pulled me back into a more complex time. Simple in my understanding of the world, complex in my curiosity of it. So I started to write. I wrote everything that had affected my writing and therefore lack of it. And the wall came tumblin' down. It is a subject I have written of often in the past year. My understanding of who I am, and my struggle to come to terms with it.
Prince Lir: I wish you would ask something of me.
Almathea: Drown out my dreams! Keep me from remembering whatever wants me to remember it!
The other day I had an emotional, philosophical, drunken conversation with Robert. A guy next door who I can do nothing but admire for the grace he exemplified that night to me of his battle with his own emotional demons. I came away with many jewels of that conversation but one stands out the most and best serves the theory behind this blog. I have to own who I am. Every last part of me. Take it and make it my very own. Forget the stereotypes or bias against that attribute, revamp it and show the world how great it can be. How great I can be. Scratch that. How great I am. I'm not saying its something I believe in, just yet.
Molly Grue: But you do. You have magic. Maybe you can't find it, but it's there. You called Robin Hood, and there is no Robin Hood. You have all the power you need if you dared to look for it.
I would rather just be someone else altogether. But I've been down that road. And it wasn't a pleasant or fulfilling one. I have yelled and I have scoffed. I have battled and I have run. I have won and I have lost. I have questioned the timing of events. And in the end, I have come to find that is all I could've asked for. As long as I'm still questioning I am still that little girl imaging a world wholly different than the one I'm experiencing now.
Amalthea: Once, I can't remember, I was long ago, someone strange. I was innocent and wise, and full of pain. Now that I'm a woman, everything has changed. Once, when I was searching, somewhere out of reach, far away, in a place I could not find, or heart obey. Now that I'm a woman, everything is strange.
Everything is strange now. Nothing is how I expected it to be. Everything is a question I yearn to answer. And someday...somehow that answer will come to me.
In the end the dreams of my childhood will become the reality of my adulthood.
Molly: No, it can't be. Can it be? Where have you been? Where have you been? Damn you! Where have you been?
Unicorn: I'm here now.
Molly: And where were you twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to? How dare you! How dare you come to me now, when I am this!
Schmendrick: Can you really see her? Do you know what she is?
Molly: If you had been waiting to see a unicorn, as long as I have...
Schmendrick: She's the last unicorn in the world.
Molly: It would be the last unicorn that came to Molly Grue.
And so here I am. Writing on a blustery fall day, curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and embracing my whimsical mood. I always say that admittance is the first step to recovery, and maybe acceptance is the second step. And as Robert told me that night, expectancy is the third. So I will start expecting greatness in my life and I'll start expecting it of others too. So long I've thought if I didn't expect people to come through for me, I wouldn't be disappointed when the inevitable happened and they didn't.
How can I expect people to believe in me, if I am to afraid to believe in them?
Prince Lir: No. My lady, I am a hero. Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever. A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.
