Car doors slam shut. Keys jingle and twitch. The engine starts, rumbling through the car like the neigh of a horse. Adults in their calm and grown up voices speak of things adultish and boring, and my eyes drift to the left, out the window. My body relaxes, sighing and settling into my seat as I watch the trees and bushes pass and the house shrink away. My eyes continue to gaze out the window, but minute-by-minute the view becomes hazy and irrelevant. I no longer see what is before me; I have entered my imagination. That wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable ocean on which I’ve sailed though my childhood. This ocean is not made of water, but thoughts as deep and mysterious as a true sea. The pink sky is brushed with soft clouds that reflect into the shining, purple ocean, and as my true self sees my reflection in the car window, my dream self sees my reflection in the ocean beneath. And I don’t see a child there. At least, not the child I am. I see an adventurer, a wanderer, a thinker and philosopher. A dreamer. The child I see is not afraid, nor is she limited by the constraints of reality. She can and will take me anywhere I want to go.

There are times I take control of the oars, or the sails, directing the boat towards a horizon I’d like to explore. I might fight through a storm of thought, tempestuous and frightening, striving toward a destination unknown. I might slowly and carefully guide my boat down a winding river, searching along the misty banks made up of mysterious forests and blue-green grass. And yet, my favorite rout is the one with no purpose and no destination. It is the drifting lull of the rolling ocean beneath me, as I let the wind blow me in whatever direction it desires. I lay on the deck, my arms splayed out, my dazzled eyes staring up at the pink and purple clouds as the wind blows locks of hair in twirling, tickling patterns across my face. I drift and I dream. I dream of scenarios and possibilities in my life. Things that could happen, and improbabilities too silly to admit. There is drama in these daydreams, as my imagination cooks up ridiculous narratives of elation or betrayal. I lose myself, but I never fear the ocean of thought beneath me, nor the winds of possibility around me. This is my boat. My safe space. My haven. It belongs to me, and only me. No one else can or will ever enter this world. No one, except God.

As years pass, I become less connected with this world. Stress and schedules and lack of sleep–the world around me tells me I no longer have time to enter that void. It loses importance and fades away. It is not completely gone, but an unseen barrier prevents me from entering it on my own. You see, I now have to rely on outside sources to enter into this dream space. The portals by which I enter are stories. Books, movies, TV shows, audiobooks. They take me back to that dream ocean where I sale the seas of wonder tales, grinning as my ship rides the waves, blowing my hair back from my face, the mist of the ocean spray on my cheeks. My breath is caught in the frigid, but invigorating wind that makes me feel alive. And yet . . . I sale these seas rarely, and in short bursts. And it’s someone else’s ocean I ride. A splash of blue water over the glistening purple of my thoughts. My ocean is beneath it somewhere, churning with ideas as I sail this foreign sea. The alien blue mixes with my calming purple past, creating a rich indigo of collaborative ideas. At times the foreign waters dissolve enough for me to see my purple storm beneath the waves. But they are waves, not the still waters of reflection, and I can no longer see my myself in the surface.

I’ve lost the ability to enter this world without assistance. And I’ve lost access to those calm, purple waters where I drifted in the breeze. Worse, while I think back with fondness of my imaginative drifting, I no longer care about that meditative place.

Is it something I’ve done? Is it who I’ve become? Can I find it again, or are those waters as lost as my childhood?

I think back to my youth, when I lived with one foot in this world at all times. It was fiction in my reality. Daydreams among the mundane. Yet, there were times when I was completely submerged, lost in my imagination, no focus or remembrance of the world around me. How did I do it? The answer comes:

NOTHING.

I did nothing. That float over calming waters was what came when I looked out the window and let go. It was only through removing myself from all other distractions that allowed me to completely submerge in my thoughts. For that is where the imagination lies: outside of the world, and inside of ourselves. And what prevents us from accessing the imagination? It is the shiny rectangle in your hand. The screen on your wall. The speakers in your car. The moment life turns quiet, we seek out these voices to drown out the silence. For silence is now deadly. As we grow, the world chews us up and spits us out, haunted and scared. That wonderous child within us is now terrified and hiding. Hiding, because in the silence we often hear the darkness of our past, or the whisperings of Satan, telling us that our mind is now a frightening place. Our sole motivation is to distract ourselves from the darkness within.

And yet . . . In my childhood, I did not find Satan in that place, but God. There was darkness there, sure, but there was also LIGHT. Light so bright that it shimmered with sparkling beauty across that clear purple sea. It filled up the sky and shown in rays through the drifting clouds, warming me to my very bones. Is this world lost to me now? Am I too broken to find it? I am starting to realize that I never lost it to begin with. The fear of darkness is second to another fear I’ve uncovered. A ridiculous, worldly fear that has no place in the glorious beings we have the ability to become.

It is the fear of boredom. In the world we live in, we must constantly be occupied. We must constantly be doing something, listening to something, watching something, or we are not doing enough. The world tells us that calmness is the enemy. Run from it! We don’t know what will happen when it catches us, but it must be something terrible. And if it is calmness we seek, the world tells us that we cannot find it on our own–we must rely on an outside source. Companies profit off this fear of being calm, spewing out flashy new devices to keep us occupied and media to trap us there, causing us to forget that all we need to enter our drifting ocean is our own minds. Our own dreams. Our own thoughts. The world drowns out the understanding that peace is not found outside of ourselves, but within.

A conversation lags, and they look to their phone. People standing in line all look to their phone. Children with nothing to do beg for a phone. Dear readers, I urge you to try something earth-shatteringly new, and yet as old as the world: PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE. I am not saying to throw it out, nor to abandon it. I am not saying not to use it. But in the quiet moments between, put down your phone and allow your mind space to IMAGINE.

Today as I sit waiting for my oil change, unable to listen to my audiobook, I catch myself picking up my phone. The urge to defeat the boredom has come over me, and my hand has sought out that little rectangle almost without my volition. But a voice inside urges me to drop it. For I miss my purple ocean. I miss drifting and daydreaming. I miss the calmness and the storm of my own world where no one else can enter. No one but God. And as I sit there, my phone face-down on my lap, I realize that this world was never truly lost to me; I’d simply forgotten the way. In the silence my eyes drift to the left, out the window. My body relaxes, sighing and settling into my seat as I watch the people around me, going about their day. My eyes continue to gaze out the window, but minute-by-minute the view becomes hazy and irrelevant. I no longer see what is before me; I have entered my imagination. That wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable ocean on which I’d sailed though my childhood. I discover thoughts as deep and mysterious as a true sea. I smile, remembering the pink sky, brushed with soft clouds that reflect into the shining, purple ocean. As my true self sees my reflection in the car window, my dream self shutters with joy, for I can once again see my reflection in the still waters beneath. And I don’t see a tired adult there. At least, not the adult that I am. I see an adventurer, a wanderer, a thinker and philosopher. A dreamer. I smile and lay back on the deck, my arms splayed out, my dazzled eyes staring up at the pink and purple clouds as the wind blows locks of hair in twirling, tickling patterns across my face. I drift and I dream.

I have found it. My boat. My safe space. My haven.

I’ve come home to my IMAGINATION.