Magic Strings

Imagination is a powerful element in the life of a child. That wish becomes reality when we learn to fabricate things in out mind, enabling us to clock out of real life, without having to move. I was a very creative kid, there was no doubt about that. I had an imagination like you could not believe. I later learned that that's a coping strategy for kids in stressful situations (ie dealing with bullies).


I was overflowing with ideas. I had plans and hopes and dreams and I loved reading. My books could take me anywhere.  By the 4th grade, I was reading high school level books, or higher. My mother had told me that reading was a way of escaping. I started to create scenarios in my head. My showers became hair shampoo commercials, red carpet runway speeches, Presidential inauguration speeches, and beauty pageants galore. I was being soaked in an environment where it was okay and encouraged to not like myself. Where it was encouraged to be anything but myself. School wasn't a supportive environment for me; I wasn't even sure I belonged there. I fabricated myself these fantasies that I was somewhere else, that the body I was in was just a stand in. I would play with guitar strings tacked to my wall, till I was no longer Georgia Falk, but someone else entirely. They were my magic strings.



I wished and wished that my magic strings could truly work. I played them and played them till I would lose my mind and end up in a world I had read about. Pretty soon, reality and my mind had gotten so mixed that I often forgot that I wasn't actually going different places when I played my strings. I could lay still in my bed after plucking a string, and feel the world around me spin. I could feel the colors blurring and mixing in the dark, I could feel the temperature changing as I lay still, listening to the sound of myself leaving my house. I could hear the beach waves, or the bustle of Hogwarts. I was Juliet, begging Romeo to stop this insanity.



Then one day, my magic string broke, but I didn't feel the need to replace it. I wasn't hungry for the world to spin. I wasn't desperate for a change of scenery. I was too tired to work my brain. So instead I lay still, night after night, and forgot about my adventures. I had a notebook. It was a gross pink red color. I hated the color pink. I still do. Inside, it contained all my adventures. All the little thoughts that ran through my mind. Some of it made a song, other parts made a poem, and some of it was just drawings repeated over and over till one deformed flower became a flower that look semi normal.


Why do we imagine safe spaces, become brilliant thinkers, create alternate universes, become time travelers, crack the mind of Confucius, and save the world from ultimate destruction, over, and over, and over again, just so we can forget we were ever more then tired teenage bodies that hate homework? Why is it that we tell each other that we were insane back in those days, when in reality, the day we became what we are is the day we lost our minds? Why does growing up mean losing creativity?


As a kid, I knew how to solve world hunger. I knew the answers to world peace. I had the perfect formula to being a good best friend. Why do we choose to forget that the sun used to be a bright yellow corner on a white sheet of paper? I am reading a book for my college class right now, and its crazy. Everyone who has looked at it has said "looks like they were on drugs"


But why? Why is it that thats how we view things? Why do we lose our creativity so much that others creativity looks like a druggie did it? Why do we forget how to play with legos and crayons and play dough? Why do we forget how exciting it is to think of all the beautiful things?


Guys, maybe today is a good day to sit down with a pen or a pencil and just draw lines. We've all lost our minds, and claim that people who haven't, are just crazy. Maybe its time to find your mind again. Winter is coming anyways.