I like to think that I am an appreciator of beautiful things. I like looking at them, I like thinking about them, I like talking about them and I like inventing beautiful things in my head.
When I was 5 I made a whole imaginary world inside my mind where I lived most nights for about the next 3 years – I was a beautiful princess and everything I owned was beautiful. My castle was beautiful, my street was beautiful, my clothes were beautiful – I even made up beautiful friends, beautiful parents, a beautiful boyfriend with a beautiful car. Not that I needed his car, I just rode my unicorn everywhere. I would imagine myself in this world every night before I went to sleep. I would make up lengthy stories about my adventures within this world, and sometimes I still do when I can’t sleep.
This world was, is so appealing to me because it was perfect and beautiful. I was never sick and nobody died. I could do what I liked and nobody was ever angry. For little me, it was magical.
When I go back to the world nowadays I can never hold my concentration long enough to create a story. Everything gets boring too quickly. I’m too old now for handsome boys, too old for swimming pools of Coco-Pops and pet dolphins, for unicorns and mermaids. I know mythical creatures are just myths and I can’t even have a regular swimming pool, much less one filled with cereal. I know the best boys are not normally gorgeous and they don’t have nice cars.
I like to think I’m an appreciator of beautiful things, but I find it hard to see them. As you get older is it that you notice beauty less or you just realise that there is not as much of it in the world as you thought?
Either way, I don’t think we talk about beauty enough. And I think little children probably see more of it than other people.
So, for the sake of the world and all its beautiful things – what do you remember from childhood? What were your dreams, your favourite things? Where did you go before you went to sleep?
Try to remember.
xx
Za.
