After I replaced my digital art display at the end of December, I didn’t immediately get back to my previous routine of sitting comfortably with a notepad and pen on a quiet weekend, imagining myself transported into the picture shown in it. That left my younger selves in the fictional village of Channelwood, which I arbitrarily set in the 1890s, in an unfortunate state of neglect. Looking to improve that situation, I sat down with a woodland scene featuring a pretty dogwood tree in bloom.
(Photo credit: Becky Cortino)
I could picture myself standing on a path beside the dogwood easily enough, with cool fresh air and chirping birds. An albino squirrel, its pale fur standing out against the dark wood, scampered up the trunk and lost itself in the white blooms. Violets brightened the grass near my feet.
Looking along the path, I didn’t see any younger-self characters nearby. The woods felt very quiet and still, like my house in real life. Hazy sunshine in the image conveyed no useful sense of direction.
“Okay,” I said out loud, picturing myself turning in a slow circle and looking all around, “so now what?”
A girl’s cheerful laugh came from the direction of a sprawling clump of honeysuckle, its buds not quite ready to open. I took a few steps off the path and found twelve-year-old Sara standing there in a long green dress that blended neatly into the scenery.
“Does there always have to be something?” she inquired.
“”Well, I came here to do a little writing for my blog.” I stepped over a decaying log and into a patch of tall ferns. “A story needs to have a plot, doesn’t it?”
Sara tilted her head to one side, considering the question. A rabbit poked its head out of the honeysuckle thicket, looking just as curious. A few petals from the dogwood slowly drifted to the ground.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to be impatient, looking all around to discover it,” she finally concluded. “Whatever it is, you can pretend it into existence on your own schedule, without need to hurry.”
Although that notion didn’t quite fit with my usual approach to writing younger-self posts, I decided to play along. “All right, I’m pretending there is an owl in a tree behind me, just about to start hooting.”
I waited a moment, feeling disappointed when I heard nothing.
“That’s a good start.” Sara gave me an approving smile. “Now we have to imagine the owl in enough detail to make her real. She is old and wise, after many years of living deep in the woods, and she has bright eyes that watch everything going on around her. She is nesting in a hole in the tree’s big trunk, where she is taking good care of two tiny owlets. We are strangers in the woods, and she doesn’t want us to be this close to her babies. That’s why she is hooting, to tell us so. She feels sleepy, but she needs to know they are safe before she can settle down and rest.”
I still didn’t hear anything from the tree behind me, but Sara’s description had left me feeling guilty about disturbing the imaginary owl family’s peace.
“Let’s move along so she can get some sleep, then.”
Sara lifted her long dress enough to step over the log with me, returning to the path. Just as we turned to walk away, the owl’s hoots carried clearly through the spring air.
