Last week, while driving at dusk, I spotted phantom clouds at the edge of my vision. At first I blamed my overactive imagination. But I kept seeing them, undulating near the margins of the road. My mind went into overdrive. Was I seeing ghosts? Or was this the first symptom of cataracts? How would I cope with impending blindness? Maybe I was hallucinating.
The clouds swirled in place like mini tornadoes. As I saw more and more of them, I decided they must be real. What if they broke loose and tore up and down the countryside? Think of the havoc they’d create, despite their small size. Convinced I was seeing some bona fide, albeit strange phenomenon, I mentioned it to my husband.
He calmly explained that they were bug clouds.
Oh. Duh. We do live in Oklahoma. We drive through a ginormous swarms all the time and need to use a chisel and hammer to get all the guts off our windshield.
Bugs, bugs everywhere!
But now that I think about it…hordes of bugs hovering at the edges of the roads. Why do they do it? Is there some kind of communication between them? What if they decide to attack?
Being creative can be dangerous. With just the right nudge, an inventive mind can loose grasp on reality and teeter on the edge of insanity. Better to channel that imagination into reading or writing a book. Seriously, it’s essential to my mental health.
If we don’t channel that imagination, it’s only a matter of time before we’re huddled in a corner, haunted by whatever ghosts or demons our overactive minds conjure up from mundane everyday encounters.
Little Monster, Big Coffin
“The best use of imagination is creativity. The worst use of imagination is anxiety.” –Deepak Chopra
What are your favorite creative outlets? What do you love to read or watch?
