A series of essays….
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MY PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF AN IMPRESSIONISTIC PAINTING ENTITLED: POOLSIDE (2007) |
….as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E Hughes
The perfectly angled autumn sun pours its golden light down upon the swirling water while the reflection of a thousand dancing fairies shimmer above me on the high-glossed, paneled ceiling. I am sitting on my lanai and daydreaming. Staring up at the tongue and groove boards, I observe brilliant white light, texture, and fluid movement as the nymphs play their afternoon games of hide and seek. My heart is filled with joy!
I have always been a daydreamer. Sister Teresa understood and encouraged me. As long as I was able to answer her questions when called upon in class, my fantasy worlds were windows of opportunity for me, as far as she was concerned. Yes, she always understood. A fellow dreamer, perhaps?
Not every Sister or lay teacher I had in Catholic School was able to perceive the importance of my mini-travels to the stars and back. Avid reading, however, was acceptable, and I always did my fair share of that. After exhausting Carolyn Keene's adventures with the help of Nancy Drew, I set my sights on F. W. Dixon and checked-out as many Hardy Boys Mystery Stories as they would allow me to each week from our small school library. The bus ride home each day was extensive and permitted me ample time to consume multiple chapters before hearing the whoosh of the bus door closing behind me.
The addition of writing coupled with the joy of reading came early on in life. By first grade I was begging my Mother to purchase extra notebooks for school, I would turn them into spiral bound journals filled with line after line of cursive script intended for my eyes only. Carefully hiding them in stacks beneath my bed, it was never my intent, at that time, to share my past, present, or future with another living soul.
The nomadic lifestyle imposed upon my family due to my father's employment made it difficult to hide much beneath my bed for very long considering the floor it rested upon changed from one year to the next. The dust bunnies barely had sufficient time to accumulate. Not only was I a wanderer within my own head but, with each move and having to adjust to each new school, new house, and new set of friends, our small, restless mobile society contributed to my need for movement and travel later on in life.
When my dad decided to finally settle down, he brought us to Michigan where I was enrolled in our public high school that included an eighth-grade level program. Growing-up required bidding adieu to the ladies donning black habits and beaded (rosary) accessories one year and hello to walking the halls alongside a student body that was eighty percent older than myself. I was now changing classrooms each hour and having to consciously recall my locker combination or be left standing alone in the hall like a fish out of water. I survived and matured because of the experience.
It was around this time that two amazing realizations occurred that have served to mold and change my life forever. I fell in love with France, all things to do with France, and knew that I could consciously submerge myself in her culture, language, people, and history and be happy the rest of my life. Secondly, it was time to share my thoughts with anyone who would be willing to read about them. I became a writer at fourteen years old. My first poem entitled "Time" was published in our local newspaper and after that, I never looked back.
There is a fine line between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Traveling between them can be an interesting adventure, especially when the journey itself is used as a coping mechanism allowing you to exist despite teenage challenges. The observation of 'visible energy' surrounding me was developed, encouraged and always felt natural. After all....I had had several years of practice by then. Because we can see light with our eyes, it has special significance to us. Rainbows show how visible energy is a combination of many colors. I often relied upon my vivid imagination to transform a negative situation into a positive experience.
To this day, daydreaming, triggered by visible energy, attracts me like a Super Magnet. Pulled into a vortex of encircling emotions and ideas, my interpretations can be transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary in moments. Unlike most of our stage five dreams at night during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep that may be forgotten upon awakening, daydreaming affords us the luxury of sustained recall. In case you were wondering, yes, I do sleep with a pad of paper and a pencil on the night stand.....just in case.
The motion that triggers a reaction in me and stimulates my desire to daydream can be as complicated and exquisite as being transfixed by the languid shadow of the backyard live oak tree as it spills its brilliant summer colors onto the swimming pool's aquamarine ripples. Or, as simple as the sunlight reflecting off of my watch creating 'Tinker Bell' choreography on the family room walls. Light. Motion. A combination capable of bridging the gap between conscious and subconscious thoughts and my personal recipe for a creative concoction certain to be utilized, expanded upon and served-up with imaginative flair in the near future.
Looking up at my dancing fairies this afternoon as I daydream the moments away, I am reminded of a quote by Sir Richard Branson, the highly successful English businessman and investor who said, "Don't ever let anyone prevent you from dreaming. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts. Don't just dream it. Go out and grab it with both hands."
Daydreaming is as close to reality as I sometimes want to be and it is much more important than the simple involvement of idle reverie or indulging in pipe dreams. Daydreaming has been and will always be my way of witnessing and then describing the softened edges of a granite hard world.....through the eyes and soul of a writer. Life seen through my eyes!
Copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline E Hughes
All rights reserved
Photograph copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline E Hughes
All rights reserved
