Nurturing the Imagination

When I was a child we didn't have all of those nice educational toys that are around today. No Baby Einstein™, no Leap Frog™ products, and certainly there were no computers. There were of course toys and dolls, Lincoln Logs, and Erector Sets, but they were few and far between at our house.

We made our own fun when we were all together, but all too often I played by myself while the others were in school- I was the youngest. Just like today, television was something that drew children's interests and it had to be limited. We had a small black and white set for years and I had no idea Mission Impossible and Hawaii 50 were in color until we got the new console television. I would sneak up after my bed time and watch the detective shows from behind some piece of furniture where I didn't think anyone knew I was, but of course parents always know you're there.

I had always thought I was weird because I set up my dolls and stuffed animals at my sister's and my tea table and I gave them voice as 'we' had conversations over tea and cookies. We discussed the next mission and how it would ultimately turn out. I usually emulated the characters from my favorite programs. I suspect I wasn't the only one who thought I was just a little strange. Then I saw a movie one Friday night that changed the way I saw the world. It must have been a rerun because when I looked it up I discovered it had been released when I was only a year old and I would not have remembered it then. I think I was five or six when I saw that enlightening program. It was of all things, Cinderella with Leslie Ann Warren in the title role. She sang a song that I never knew all the lyrics to, but a particular section of verse stuck in my head for the rest of my life. It was, "In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be..." There was more to the song about nothing standing in her way and being wherever she wanted to be as long as she was in her own imagination. I didn't feel quite so odd any more. If anything I embraced the freedom that that song gave me.