Imagination is Funny

I have always been surrounded by family and friends who are imaginative.  When we sit down to eat dinner in the evening, we are never sure how many people are going to join us.  It makes meal planning a bit difficult, but it leads to excellent conversations.  It is not unusual for someone to come in just bursting to tell us an idea about a business, or a science project or about a new song they heard, etc.  There are ideas bouncing around here all the time.  Ideas for parties, for something to cook, costumes (usually precipitated by some unusual material... like bubble wrap entering the house).  My nephew Joseph is building his kids an actual working roller coaster in their backyard.  You would be amazed what my son is willing to launch from a trebuchet.  (I have no idea how to spell that and neither does my spell check.)  To give you an idea though, when he was a little kid he wanted to get one so we could launch "water filled carp" into Andy's backyard.  It is not unusual for someone around here to ask things like, "If you were a dog, what kind of dog would you be?"  Sometimes we are much more serious and try to come up with things like an elegant solution to desalinating water (my personal favorite).

This morning the cleaning ladies, who were supposed to come at eleven, showed up at eight.  I had gone back to bed in a vain attempt to rid myself of a headache.  So I got up, pulled on some jeans, and walked over to the Starling Diner for some french toast while they got to work.  I got their fancy little tea service, and settled in to contemplate my morning.  Didn't work.  I was drawing a total blank.  My brain was still wondering why I was vertical.  Luckily, the diner has these little notebooks where people can record their thoughts, or sketch or otherwise be imaginative.  A cup of tea and a peek into the private minds of others... doesn't that just sound perfect?

The entries fell into two categories:

• I'm just visiting the area and this is the best french toast I've ever had...
• The waiter is really cute, I wonder if he notices me...

Really????  No pirate maps?  No deep dark secrets?  Absolutely nothing profound?  What has happened to us?  I remember when my auntie was back at university to get her Masters, how excited she'd be to come home to repeat some idea that she had seen scrawled on a wall somewhere.  What has happened to all of our wall scrawlers?  What has happened to our imagination?  The best we can do is, "the waiter's cute," and, "this french toast is really good"?