Picture a world in which imagination is valued for the infinite expansion it adds to our lives. Government, toilet paper, electricity, e=mc2, Jazz, Starry Night…these all sprang from the deep well of their creator's active imagination. Yet in families, schools, government, commerce, and most other corners of our culture, imagination is often seen as frivolous, a waste of time, or unprofitable. It is neglected in favor of the countless more “important” tasks that fill our days, our screens, or pay the bills. Those who forge ahead by letting their imaginations run wild in the face of adversity, such as Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Gertrude Stein, Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Toni Morrison, and so many other creative warriors, shine a path into a better world for the rest of us to follow.
Posts filed under Creative Nonfiction
The Past Rarely Stays in the Past
Sometimes it’s hard to uncover the truth about past events. Other times the past reveals its truths almost unbidden. Either way, the past rarely stays only in the past.
Love Letter From Our Future
Dear Ancestors of the 2020’s, I am a young person studying our history, and I felt inspired to write to you — from your future! We are learning in our history about your era, and I feel so sad about your plight. We all do, really. How dark and scary those times must have felt for you! I decided to write you a letter (because we can do that now) to let you know how things have turned out.
Vivante: Notes From a Year of Dreaming Dangerously
March 12, 2020. Out on the town with friends. We are in a restaurant. Upon leaving, we see it has mysterious doorframes. Two are rectangular. One is round, named “Eternity”, and seems to be forbidden, but we are drawn to defy that and move toward it anyway. It has a silver-gray cast. Within it is a mirror, in which we see someone whose body has become a chair with white plastic upholstery. The doorway now reminds me of a window in a washing machine. Everything dreams. Every element, every cell, every organism.
Nocturne
One Halloween, the night when barriers are said to dissolve between dimensions, as perhaps they do every night, my friend Marin and I took a ceremonial walk after dark through Bird Hills Nature Area. We stopped to read poetry and tell dreams at places we knew in the forest.
Fishing for Papa
There are three ponds on my in-laws’ property in northern Georgia. Each was stocked decades ago with largemouth bass and bluegill, and since then, the fish populations have flourished. I’ve seen them from the water’s edge, sleek shapes among the weeds, under overhanging branches, and near the pilings of the old dock.
The Quiet Season
With a decisive “click,” the storm windows lock into place, and the quiet season begins. The sounds outside fall distant, muffled until mid-spring. The days are cool, the nights dip toward freezing, and the easy, outdoorsy time of summer and early autumn has passed. The leaves have turned. Snow will come soon.
Golubki, Golubchik
Do you know what golubki are? They’re rolls of (primarily) meat wrapped in cabbage, highly common in Russia and the countries that border it. I was born in Moscow, Russia, but my mother was born in Odessa, Ukraine.
Guidance on a Saturday Morning by Brady Mikusko
I received the call from my Uncle Bob on a Friday night. Now, keep in mind that this guy had never called me. I was in my late 40s at the time. So for 40-plus years, I had never received a call from him.
Sit. Stay. Go home. by Ali Shapiro
In puppy kindergarten class we are working on stay. Like most of the important commands, stay is taught in stages. Stage 1 is Duration. At first, the dogs only have to stay for a second or two before we release them and reward them with treats. Then, gradually, we up the ante. The dogs have to stay for ten seconds, then thirty, then a minute before the release.
