Frozen in Time

Well, that was different.  Thanksgiving this year looked, we’ll just say, unfamiliar.  For my family, and undoubtedly many families to be sure, it is traditionally a day that is consumed with eating, drinking, inappropriate humor and a general sense of merriment.   It is a day of reflection that is spent feeling thankful and grateful for the people and the things that we hold most dear.  Above any other day of the year, it is a day that we dig deep and actually use our words to pay homage to our blessings.  But this year was different courtesy of the uninvited and unanimously unwelcome guest, also known as the virus, who decided to pull up a chair at dining room tables everywhere and stay, forcing us to give our thanks from a safe distance.  However, with or without the virus and while Thanksgiving is a full day of food and spirit, for better or for worse and like it or not, it is also often considered to be a catalyst; a moment in time when we look forward to the days ahead that will ultimately close out one year only to ring in anew as the clock strikes midnight.  We celebrate this ritualistic orbital gift annually as we go to sleep in one year and wake up the very next day to a fresh start, a new lease, as the new year provides new opportunities that hopefully do not need to include masks, hand sanitizer or extra toilet paper.

Yet even amidst the chaos and uncertainty of this past year, it is still nearly impossible to not get caught up in the excitement of the holiday season.  Driving around seeing the festive town and lawn displays, twinkling lights adorning entire front porches, cheerful songs that are so irresistible that even those who align themselves more with the Grinch or Scrooge can sometimes be heard joining in for a chorus or two.  The magical and mischievous Elves on the Shelves and all of their nightly shenanigans.  For anyone with the younger variety of children in the house, the Christmas wish lists that go through multiple revisions until they are ready to be viewed by the jolly man with the white beard and red suit who will make the ultimate determination on their nice vs. naughty status throughout the course of the past year.  It is a flurry of constant movement and purpose as we do our best to make memories for our children filled with the magic and wonder that nostalgically transports us back to our own childhood holiday memories.

Magic. A sleight of hand.  Optical illusions.  The skillful and covert trickery that parents partake in each year in order to create, in a single day, the holiday memories that their children will hopefully carry with them for a lifetime.  With more frequency and a heightened sense of urgency, we find ourselves harkening back to the days of our youth, as we oscillate between remaking holiday traditions that we grew up with while simultaneously inventing a few of our own.  Once a year, we dust ourselves off and sweep away the cobwebs to give our imaginations permission to shine.  As we are quickly reminded that the build-up of excitement is a much-needed contagion that we catch from our children.  A welcome crescendo of chaos that is at the same time both dizzying and bittersweet.   We rely on movies and books, past and present, to be our unshakeable guides while we navigate new terrain as our children get older and quietly tiptoe through the field of believability.   We become like a scene inside a snow globe.  As long as we continue to shake the globe and make it snow, the scene inside the globe comes back to life again.

As far back as our own memories will take us, maybe we remember brief moments when our breath was taken away after witnessing an awe-inspiring act of something unbelievably miraculous, mysterious and, yes, magical.  Whether it was a death-defying circus performance or a magic trick with a deck of cards, those moments when we are left to wonder if our eyes, like the cards, are playing tricks on us.  Because magic does not always present itself in those abracadabra moments like when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.  Sometimes – most times – magic is found when and where it is least expected.  And the magic of the holiday season is no exception.  Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”  And that is true whether you are talking about a flying reindeer or global warming in the same sentence.  Just because you don’t see it with your own eyes doesn’t make it less true.  It begs the question:  at what pivotal point in our lives do we cease believing in what would otherwise be considered unbelievable?  When did we become so cynical that our sense of wonder and hope for miracles become nothing more than an unattainable pipe dream? 

A child’s imagination is boundless when it is fostered and given the opportunity to flourish.  That is a fact that would be difficult to disprove.  Albert Einstein said, “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”   And although that may very well be true, Albert Einstein’s theorization on relativity did not include games like Space Invaders or Journey to the Savage Planet.   We do not need a game to tell us that there are stars in the sky.  All we need to do is look up and see them for ourselves.  But the other truth that cannot be easily dismissed is that children today are spending less and less time outside looking up at the stars.   Instead, much of their time is spent looking down at a small screen while playing a game that was created by someone else.  Imaginations everywhere have been stolen and knowingly suppressed.  If we want to have a serious conversation about the obstruction of children’s natural growth progression and that consequential point when wonder and uninhibited creativity is abandoned, then we must be willing to accept that we are all accomplices who have played a significant role in the preventable, yet inevitable, outcome. 

Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.  If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” When our children were small, many of us read to them those fairy tales that opened their minds to the magical worlds that were unreal and mostly make believe.  We watched as the stories became the spark that motivated them to believe in the unbelievable.  We bought them dolls, Play-doh, crayons and construction paper to encourage their inherent creativity as they brought the stories they heard to life on paper while inventing some of their own stories through active play.  Right there.  That’s the moment.  It could be argued that we are all profoundly guilty of letting go of that moment too soon.  The shiny objects, also known as electronic devices along with social media, have become a mediocre sideshow to what was once considered to be the most important and consequential part of children’s growth.  We will say with a straight face that the games on the devices are educational, but we know that is not really true.  We know with certainty that the devices and the games have quickly become our scapegoats because that is what is easy.  We have become proficient at shifting the blame from ourselves to an inanimate device because we are categorically unwilling to confess our own negligence.

“Imagination is everything.  It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”  If Albert Einstein was right when he said that, and his quotes can stand the test of time, then it would seem that the importance of imagination is oftentimes overlooked and taken for granted.  And when we become trapped inside a snow globe that never seems to snow, our dreams and possibilities, even those that are the most unbelievable, cease to exist.  For some of us, flying unicorns and fire-breathing dragons, and yes, even Santa, exist because we need them to.  Imagination is the one thing we have that is not subject to the truth or common sense.   Remembering that Albert Einstein also said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”  However, when we fall prey to the notion that growing up has to be an unceremonious abdication of our imaginations, we simultaneously lose our sense of curiosity and ability to think outside the wrapped and tightly sealed box.

Albert Einstein said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.  It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”  And that is true whether you are talking about the real world as a whole or an imaginary world that is captured inside a snow globe that only comes to life when it snows.  And yet, maybe the idyllic scene inside the snow globe is a lie and represents the problem.  In truth, it is nothing more than an optical illusion.  Most often we see a peaceful, snow-filled winter scene inside a perfectly round, glass bubble.   But what about the stories that remain untold and are not captured inside that glass bubble?  Those moments that are frozen in time that represent discontent and instability?  The stories of reality where the stars never seem to align.    Because stores are not exactly overflowing with snow globes that represent real-life experiences that are relatable to the average person.  We likely won’t find any time soon scenes of the pandemic or financial hardship being doused with snowfall inside a snow globe that may or may not be displayed on top of a holiday-decorated mantel for visitors to see.  Time has the luxury of standing still inside the snow globe.  Preserving only those utopian and tranquil moments while the devastation of hardship and loss remain hidden away.

Now.  As someone whose glass is generally both half full and half empty, depending on the day, it is literally not possible for me to commit to any perspective with certainty.  If Albert Einstein was right when he said, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle” then like most things, we get to choose which of those two options we want to believe.  Because magic and miracles are not likely found being pulled out of a magician’s hat or inside the big sack that is carried over the shoulder of the jolly man with the white beard and red suit who travels one day a year on a sleigh that is pulled by a team of flying reindeer.  We know that the truth is not contained inside a snow globe.  And yet we also know that sometimes magic and miracles can and do happen in the most unexpected and perfectly ordinary, untimed moments.  Maybe snow globes represent a small symbolic example of humanity being tested.  We don’t know how strong we are until we are shaken and turned upside down.

The truth is snow globes are really the figment of someone else’s imagination having fun.  If that is true, then we are all living inside the snow globes which would make us both the creators and the curators of our imaginations thereby freezing our own memories in time.   And in the end, when our snow globe is shaken and turned upside down, we can still nostalgically bring back to life the wonderland of magic that we have preserved in our memories.

DISCLAIMER:  All quotes were found on brainyquotes.com and goodreads.com and are understood to be actual true statements referenced for the sole purpose of illustrating a point.  Quotes have been bolded and italicized to appropriately provide a delineation from the author’s personal perspective.