I solved my wild new world problem in the bathtub. (Not really, but that was where I slowed down and was not connected to my computer or books or screens of any kind, so that solutions and answers and crazy random dreams that I have carried a long time and not had space or language for could splash around.) I had set the intention before my bath to lay in the hottish lavender scented water and shift my focus from the tips of my toes to the top of my head until the noise of it all cleared and my imagination could play. (I have some of my favorite thoughts in the bathtub, so this approach made joyful sense.) I traveled in my mind to when I was a child and would lose myself in writing. Teachers gave me positive feedback on papers, and it all came so easily. Words flowed like the chocolate fountain at my niece’s high school graduation party. I read books that dared me to understand a bigger world than I could otherwise imagine. If imagination makes empathy possible, I was an empath from my first Beverly Cleary or Judy Bloom or Box Car Children or Nancy Drew.

As I drift farther into my imagination in my glorious bath, I remember my red folder of secret poetry, my book report on Shirley Chisolm, my letter to God during confirmation. I flash forward through church choirs and musical casts to the part where I was an English and Theatre major voraciously reading and writing while also learning to teach English and Theatre. After my Turner syndrome diagnosis, imagination allowed me to know visceral – mind, body, and spirit— hope. My imagination danced between wordlessness and words, and oneness and solitude. I loved it all. I am learning that a big part of my imagination now comes from my imagination then — a kind of imaginative muscle memory I developed early on.

I warm up my bath water and continue to excavate my imagination. It all comes to mind in vivid relief. Mentors who foster imagination. Writers who inspire imagination. Moments when the as if, not yet, why, and I am fire imagination. Friends and loved ones who live imagination with me. Imaginative conversations of guidance, support, wisdom, and love flow. They all form a cosmic imagination garden where the seeds of possibility are planted. I play in that garden. It all is possible. In a state of pronoia, I conspire with the universe for good. Right now, my wild new world problem looks different. It looks soft and vast and juicy and malleable and communal and honest. Now, the challenge becomes actually planting an imagination garden, seed by seed, in my everyday.