Taking a Breather

 *there are pics at the end of this post if you wanna just skip the words and see pics*

(as a blog reader myself, i'm just lookin out for you. also i get kinda philosophical towards the end if that sounds interesting to you)

update: Since all I ever want to do is post e.e. cummings poems on this blog, I resist the urge to even post. All other creative juices are sucked out by my lack of time to even eat a proper meal, and I am left with no motivation to write a blog. But the idea is so enticing! Musing is one of my very favorite pastimes. I think without an outlet like this, I just end up boring and/or weirding out my friends.  With that, I would like to gladly announce that I am on spring break, and what a break it is. With time to breathe, the likelihood of this blog being something worth reading has shot through the roof, not unlike the amount of sleep I am gifted with this week.

preview: Things to look forward to this summer: musings about weddings, perhaps the evolution of this blog into a wedding blog unlike any other... from the perspective of the attendant, since I will be a professional wedding guest this summer. Let's just say I should probably learn the dance to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" so that I might entertain all those watching the spectacle that is the bouquet toss, while also using some ninja moves to procure all 8 bouquets.

the real post: This week I've been helping out at Union Independent School here in Durham. They are a year-round school, so they are currently "tracked out" (i think that's what they call it... sounds a little like cracked out, which could be just as likely here in durham... is that bad to say?). This week they are putting on a camp for the lil chillins so they aren't bored to tears. We've had a ball so far, partaking in all that the Bull City can offer. We walked/took a city bus to the Durham Bulls game, where our time was filled with "dance breaks" and home runs, which are especially exciting because smoke comes out of the bull's nose! (You kinda have to already know what I'm talking about to picture it.) Today was probably my favorite, because we got to go to the Scrap Exchange and hang out in the Durham Central Park. And that brings me to the thought I wanted to muse on that brought this whole post into being: Imagination.

Being in the Scrap Exchange was like a magical transportation into the inner workings of an imagination. You walk into a room that is lined with barrels full of delightfully organized scraps of what originally looks like well-sorted trash. You are a little overwhelmed and skeptical. But with Devandra Banhart on in the background and projects hanging from any and all wall space, you start to sink into the core of your imagination and sit there for a while to see what comes out. It is stressful at first-- the free reign to create legitimately anything your heart desires. But then, you settle in and it blossoms. I found my niche as a frilly accessory maker, coming out with headbands made from plastic flowers and what I can only assume were discarded elastics for underwear from some clothing factory. By the end, the girls were fairy princesses and the boys were civil war soldiers, waging an epic battle complete with shields and helmets. The time flew as all of us... both the 6-year-olds and the 28-year-olds threw off the shackles of standards/objectives/rules and just created. It was glorious.

But there is something about imaginative creations that seem so silly out of context. Inside that room, we were princesses, good guys, and bad guys. An old CD was an axe, a flava-flav necklace, a shield. All that junk serves a purpose and is necessary to exist inside of those four walls. But then you leave, and eat lunch or something, then look down at your pile of stuff and a little bit of the magic is gone. What was a ferocious shield is now just 4 CD jewel cases barely held together by masking tape. You're not a princess, you just have a bunch of plastic flowers taped to a cup. By the time you walk it all home, you are left with a less-shiny version of something that just doesn't make sense in the "real" world. I think the beauty of childhood is that that magic veneer doesn't really wear off as quickly as when you're an adult. Everything's a little more enchanting, all parts of the world are a little bit mixed in with imagination. I like to think of it as part of my job as an educator/future-mom to create those spaces so that kids don't have to take off the rose-colored imagination glasses and can live in the blissful oblivious world of imagination for as long as they want. Really, I think I'm probably still there in a lot of ways.

the chillins outside the scrap exchange gettin ready to create! 

dj headphones... definitely one of my favorite creations 

lil chica sporting fairy wings, headband, fairy wand, and flava-flav style necklace/medal 

the epic battle for which there was so much preparation and so little actual battling. i think this captures some of the magic, but it really can't be captured.