Life and work got in the way again last week, so Yvonne Jones, Laura Staley, Maribel Cardez, Tom Dietzler, and I didn’t get together for our writing workshop, Finding Your Voice. Since the life and work commitment that kept me from our session required some driving, I had time to think, to reflect on what we’ve been up to in the workshop, and to contemplate age and wonder, adults and children. I composed the first stanza of the verse that appears in the video below. And I was fortunate enough to remember it when I returned home.
As I was continued the verse and as I fleshed out the video, I thought about Martin the Marlin, the first book for children I wrote and published. It struck me that Steven, the protagonist in that book, progressed through the stages of having, losing, and regaining his childlike senses of wonder, idealism, imagination, courage, and creativity. And because he’d regained those senses, he came to recognize the enduring nature and the inestimable value of love and friendship. Then it occurred to me, for the very first time, to use imagery from the book in the video. So, I did.
The quote at the end of the video comes from an essay I published on Medium in 2019. I called it “Take the First Step”. If this post, the video, and the essay help just one adult regain — or hold on more tightly to — senses of wonder, idealism, imagination, courage, and creativity, my idle rumination will have been worth something.
And if that does happen, even for just one adult, I ask that adult to pay it forward.
What a beautiful cocktail, Mark.
The words that came up for me was how real connection opens a portal to something serene. Innocence, perhaps, in that trust and nonjudgment is innocent and for many people a return to childhood or before.
Oh, I love that Charlotte. Most people read J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, as some kind of rendering of Holden Caulfield’s adolescent angst. I read it as Holden’s struggle to protect the innocence of his sister, Phoebe.
I definitely think you’re on to something: If we can suspend our adult tendencies to judge, we may very well return to the childlike serenity that enables (fosters? inspires? is the source of?) wonder, imagination, and creativity.
Thank you for your comments. I’m so grateful for our connection.