This morning’s local news show featured a short discussion about the hosts’ favorite childhood toys. One of them mentioned Legos, another played with a boxing robot toy, and a third said she was a karaoke star in her bedroom.
I first thought how these toys ‘dated’ or declared their owner’s age, but then reconsidered. I haven’t prowled the toy aisles recently, and especially the male-oriented ones. I think all of those toys are still available.
Next, I thought about my favorite childhood toys, followed by how they influenced my later life and even my writing. It’s an easy equation.
Dressing up, playing make-believe, was my favorite game. I was the queen when it came to this game. My ideas spanned eras and genres. With one girlfriend, we were career gals or mommies. With another, we took turns teaching. With a third, we’d be horses, galloping across the wide prairie. Even the boys got in the act, playing pirates, space explorers, or our favorite TV shows.
I had the ‘stuff’ for everything. My ‘possibles’ box was full of costumes, tools, and weapons. Shelves in the basement held more tools to tantalize the imagination. I had a large space at the back of the garage with both a regular door and a ‘secret’ tunnel entrance through the doghouse the dog refused to use. (We took the top off, inside the garage hide-out. We could keep ‘enemies’ out by putting it back on.)
When I got a bit older, I was a hanger-on at the local theater, pulling stints at everything backstage as well as filling in with the chorus. I prowled the costume shop, and vultured the make-up personnel. I was prompter, lighting, and ticket-taker in this real life world of make-believe. No one teases the teen with the paintbrush or the key to the prop room.
At the same time, I read voraciously, and I wrote. Plays, poetry, short stories, even a couple of novels. The ‘possibles’ box in my mind overflowed. Story ideas popped up faster than I could write them. Never mind that most of them were too fantastic or unrealistic to live. I created them. And filed them away when they were either written or they expired.
Now, when my Muse is plays the belligerent card on me and says that we’re fresh out of workable ideas. That’s when I invite her to open the box of ‘possibles’ and play with whatever she finds. Heck, Muse is still a kid at heart. She usually comes around in short order, and we’re off, playing Make Believe on paper.
2 comments:
Hi Eleyne;) good to see you again! Yes, my sister and I played make-believe and had a box of possibles as well: dressed up as mommies often. Once we were given a Bolivian wedding gown (all red and gold velvet) so we played at getting married often after that. When my brothers came home from boarding school, the older one sat under a tree and read. The second oldest played clubs or shopkeepers with us. He was the chairman (always had to be the boss!) I was the secretary as I loved to write and my sister was the treasurer. We had no money but she was happy with her office. Oh my, you have re-awakened my muse! Thanks and bless you. Jo, presently living in East Africa
Hi, Jo, and thanks for stopping by.
Wasn't it wonderful when our brothers and sisters joined in our games? All those make-believe times still make me smile.
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