OyChicago blog

Come with me, and you will see, my world thrown back into imagination with just one spark. Yes, journey with me on a discovery that was more of a re-discovery. For I want to tell you a tale. A tale of fencing! Of fighting! Of torture! Revenge! Giants! Monsters! Chases! Escapes! True love! Miracles -- wait a second! That's The Princess Bride. Wrong tale. Moving on!

This tale is about something within me that was long forgotten yet greatly missed. I am of course talking about -- my imagination. (I thought I had a more clever way to reveal that, but it must've been a figment of my imagination). The year was 20 aught 15. The month, the Ember of Sept. The day, not really important.

I was in the land of Kalamazoo, which as it turns out is a city and not a zoo known as Kalama. I went to the city on a personal journey of self-discovery. I also brought along my girlfriend. Our self-discovery was to find beer. And while beer was found during our self-discovery (and in quite the abundance), t'was the stop between beer discoveries that has had some truly significant significance.

For you see, there was a museum or wonders at the heart of this city, lying right under the lungs but above the stomach. What drew me there was not only the price of the admission (free), or that it was on our beer excursion walking route, but it was that they had one very special exhibit.

Tinkertoys. That's right, toys of the tinkering kind.

A love letter, or rather a love exhibit, was on display encompassing the joy and exhilaration of that carefree building toy of yesteryear. I was reeled in by the bright colors, the elaborate displays, the fact that I had accidentally grabbed a fishing lure and the want -- nay, need -- to build using my imagination. It was a feeling I hadn't experienced in quite some time.

I've always loved building toys. I grew up a lover of K'nex; I was never as big into LEGOs, which is very characteristic of my personality to go against the popular thing. (This is how I rebelled.) But that non-specified day in the Zoo known as Kalama, I found my long-neglected need to fully explore my imagination no longer remained dormant.

That day my girlfriend and I built a great many things. Fireworks, bazookas, lollipops, throwing stars (or starfish, depending on who you asked) a zoo I named Kalama as well as abundance of memories.  And during the course of being reunited with my imagination, I was additionally being reunited with other Tinkertoy enthusiasts (read: toddlers) that I had to contend with to get the best pieces to build my imaginary deluxe-sized abacus made of Twizzlers that uses doughnuts instead of wooden beads and requires a verbal passphrase to unlock as well as a retinal scan from a pet. Not just anyone can use it, you know.

The moral of this tale, as all tales come conveniently packaged with a moral, is that I should never lose sight of my imagination again. To take it a step further, I should even take time out of my busy, adult-stuff-centric schedule to explore what my much more mature imagination has to offer.

Playing with those Tinkertoys was like a wakeup call. Well, actually, not that. Wake up calls are a nuisance. Let's see, um … it was like diving into a pool full or marshmallow fluff! In other words, it was a realization that my imagination is still there, with much more to explore, or as my adult version might say, much more to be tapped. Heh heh. (Because this started off as a discovery for beer. I used my imagination good on that one.)

I've begun to realize that reconnecting with my imagination is more than just daydreaming. It's making something great out of something that came entirely from within my own thoughts, ideas and dreams and then playing with it. I love where my imagination can take me when I use it for the fun stuff, because the fun stuff has no stress, no anxiety and no limitations. As I said, it's more than daydreaming -- it's finding my dreams by using my imagination, because with my imagination, a dream can be a dream come true.