Childhood Memories

I am grateful for all the hours of my life, but that does not mean I relish in recalling them all. Yet there is one, distinct minute of a memory often neglected that is worth recalling: that moment when your imagination is ignited by the landscape.

This photo you see at the top of the page, was the exact moment I, at the tender age of six, believed there to be fairies living beneath the earth-riddled cave. The gentle green, luscious tufts that spread their giant (or, what was giant to a child) wings across the sand; the quite grove made for a young girl and her imagination.

It was this moment, I enjoyed, and loved the water - the amber beads of yellow resonance which reflected the light of the sun. I had fallen in love with the view. Envision a little pink sprite in with brilliant yellow wings fluttering beneath the cave, and a small orchestra of her fairy friends singing to the chords of an untuned ocean. This photo is the moment a young girl relished in her imagination; in the thing us grown up children tend to neglect for the sake of seeming "mature". At this junction, I would like us all to recall these brilliant words:

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

The importance of remembering your childhood imagination can not be described in words plastered to a website page. You must venture out, into the wilderness of an imagined landscape (as you sit on your couch, or other soft surface) and create beautiful images and forms that give you hope and sanctity of spirit.

You do not need to be in nature to remember its beauty. Simply close your eyes, and let the minstrels of your heart run with a thousand fairies into unforgotten caves. Perhaps you will encounter a dragon at the gates; a terrifying magician; a strong protagonist? Perhaps you will find peace; tranquility?

The wonderful thing about reimagining remembered landscapes is that you never need to venture beyond your door. And, what is more, you can have all the space in the cosmos, fiddled and fitted into the small portions of your human-sized brain.

Childhood memories are essential to recall, because they remind us of what it means to be ignorant- and willing to learn, desiring to discover, and wanting to believe in the improbable. Maybe, it is time for you to turn to your collection of photos, and consider what it meant to be inquisitive to an extent that would drive your guardian mad. Remember that time you asked your guardian why the sky was blue? Or why how wind was created?

To be honest, I still do not know the answer to these questions (in their detail, of course). And a part of me never wants to find out. The sky is blue because it is wondrous, the grass is green because it is beautiful. A part of me never wants to know because it is often in times of certainty that we lose our imagination of what could be. Perhaps the sky is blue because there is an alternate world who floor was painted blue? Perhaps wind is created by the people who run on the floor in the world above?

Certainty is great, don't get me wrong. We need to be certain that rent will be paid next month, and the electricity bill will be taken care of. But it is the balance between certainty and uncertainty, imagination and reality, childhood memories and adult actions, which make our life sublime.