Pure Imagination

The greatest shock of reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as an adult (aside from the dark humor, e.g. Chapter 10:  The Family Begins to Starve--that must have drifted right past me as a child) is how quick a read it is.  I remember rich, delicious descriptions that I realize now, must have been colored in by my eager imagination.  Part of Roald Dahl’s genius is knowing just how much to feed little minds—to bait them into dreaming more deeply about fantastic possibilities.  The story, the dialogue, the bones of imagery is all there, but young readers must meet the book half way—contributing their own ideas to construct the magical place that is Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. 

This week, I am bringing you a special mother-daughter edition of Life with Sophia.  Together, Sophia and I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory through my participation in the online book club, From Left to Write.  Afterwards, we both blogged in response to the following prompt, encouraging us to insert ourselves inside the pages:   What I Would Do If I Won a Golden Ticket

By Sophia, Age 6

First thing:  Tell my parents. 

Second thing:  Put on my best clothes. 

Third thing:  Get in the car. 

Fourth thing:  Bring my parents to the factory. 

Fifth thing:  Be very interested. 

Sixth thing:  Greetings: “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Wonka.”

Seventh thing:  Inside the factory:  We play “Whip the Cream” and watch as Mr. Wonka makes candy disappear into our mouths.  We play a piano that is made out of candy.  In one room, it looks like we were outside.  And there are trees made out of candy, bushes made out of candy.  Everything has sugar.  Even the grass and the dirt.  The waterfall is made out of chocolate.  The bark is mint gum.  The wood is dark chocolate, my mother’s favorite.  The leaves are made out of mint, cause Daddy likes the color green.  The birds are made out of coconut and dried mangos.

Eighth thing:  We see a little cottage.  The curtains are made out of taffy.  The door is made out of a giant cookie.  The chairs and tables are made out of crushed mint.  There is even a piano made out of licorice.  The fireplace is made out of taffy.  The windows are made out of blue flattened gumballs.  And the chimney is made out of gumdrops.  I leave it alone because Mr. Wonka says, “We have to move onto the next thing” (and because it’s his house). 

Ninth thing:  I get a prize at the end, because I am the most behaved person.  My prize is for my whole family to live there! 

Tenth thing:  I say thank you at the end.  So does the rest of my family. 

By Melissa, Age 43

First thing:  I freak out.  It must be a hoax.  How did I get so lucky?  I get the ticket authenticated.  I do not alert the media.  I hide it in my underwear drawer.

Second thing:  I ask my daughter to come with me.   I tell her to tell no one.  She announces it to all her friends at school the next day.  That evening, the media descends on my house like a swarm of flies on a dead body.  They take really awful pictures of me with my mouth open and print them in International newspapers. 

Third thing:  I cannot sleep at all the night before because I am so excited.  This means I will have dark rings under my eyes and will be cranky on what should be the best day of my life. 

Fourth thing:  I put on my best clothes.  I take off my best clothes.  I put my best clothes on again. 

Fifth thing:  I kiss my husband goodbye who doesn’t actually mind that he’s not going to the factory because he doesn’t like chocolate.  Instead he will sleep in and watch an entire season of Game of Thrones. 

Sixth Thing:  Willy Wonka is much shorter than I expected.  I am relieved that I do not feel attracted to him. 

Seventh Thing:  Willy Wonka has invented dark chocolate that will not give me pimples.  He leads me by the hand to a Chocolate Bar where all the parents can hang out and sip Shiraz out of cups made of the non-pimple causing chocolate, while our kids go to town mowing mint grass with their mouths.  Willy Wonka assures me everything is organic. 

Eighth Thing:  We all brush our teeth.  

Ninth Thing: Willy Wonka tells me that Sophia remembered to say “thank you” and “please” while I was too busy chatting it up with the other parents at the Chocolate Bar to effectively parent.  He commends me on such a well-mannered child.  He then tells me that he offered her a lifetime supply of chocolate, but she asked that he please foot the bill for her college tuition instead.  He agreed. 

Tenth Thing:  I smile with gratitude and give Willy Wonka a kiss on the cheek.  Wait a minute.  Is he blushing? 

This post was inspired by the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. To celebrate, Penguin Young Readers Group, in partnership with Dylan’s Candy Bar, the world-famous candy emporium, and First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise that provides books for children from low-income families, is launching a year-long international celebration.

Head over to From Left to Write to learn how you and your child can have a chance to win the Golden Ticket Sweepstakes where the grand prize is a magical trip to New York City plus much more! For every entry submitted, Penguin Young Readers Group will make a donation to First Book. Then, join From Left to Write on July 24 as we discuss Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As a book club member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

A Place Safe from Fear

There was a thick volume of Grimm’s fairy tales in my hometown library that I read over and over again.  I would pull it down from the shelf and sit on the floor, knees to chest, swept into another place by stories of beauty and horror.  The library was an old building, made of stone and must.  The rooms were cramped and cozy, so packed with books that there was little room to squeeze by.  It was the perfect place to probe my fear.  Where, safe from the real world, I could grapple with death and betrayal.  Where I learned about loyalty and love.  Grimm’s fairy tales were far more gruesome than anything I encountered in suburban life.  They promised that whatever my experience was, it could be worse.  Somehow, I found this reassuring.

Who wouldn’t want their child to know these morally ambiguous tales? These stories open up a conversation, if not with others, in one’s own mind, about right and wrong, darkness and light, fear and love. 

Sophia was only three when I introduced her to my own abridged crumbling copy of Grimm.  I read her a pre-Disney version of Cinderella.  In which, birds on Cinderella’s mother’s grave dress her in finery for the ball—not a fairy Godmother, and the step sisters hack off parts of their foot so that they might squeeze into Cinderella’s slipper, only to be returned as false brides, when they leave a trail of blood as the prince carries them off.  When I finished, Sophie squealed:

“Read me the part with the blood again!”  She loved its gory truth almost as much as I did. 

Here is the great irony:  I go to great lengths to protect Sophia from violent imagery on television—from the news, adult dramas, and cartoons that either horrify or numb one to death and destruction.   These potent images leave nothing to the imagination.  They are what they are.  And they either get stamped on one’s brain (I will never forget the scene in Carrie where the other girls threw sanitary napkins at her in the shower, which, by the way, I found much more frightening than the knives flying into her mother, the blood being poured over her head at the prom, or the hand that reached through the earth at the end.) Or, they are easily forgotten among heaps of expendable bodies. 

But I will let her read these stories.  Stories of which she must conjure the images out of her own dark self.  Stories that take on her fantasy of what is most fearsome.  Or not.  She has control over what she sees.  She becomes its mistress.  Her fear conforms to what she can handle. 

And in turn it makes the world more tolerable.  A place safe from fear. 

“Mommy!  Come look at what I read in the newspaper!” She is excited.  Just a week ago she said, hopefully, “Maybe next year I will read a newspaper!”  Apparently, she has discovered she can. 

“Just a minute Sophie.”  I have just stepped out of the shower.  My hair is dripping down my neck.  My body is still too damp to put on my clothes.  “I have to get dressed.”

It is 7:30.  Sophie is dressed, but she has her polka dot robe knotted tightly over her tutu, “to be cozy.” 

I come into the kitchen, where Sophie is kneeling on a chair, pen in hand.  She has been doodling on the paper.  There are hearts all along the top and a dark underline scribbled beneath one article. 

“Listen to this:  ‘Dr. Kermit Gosnell is charged with killing seven babies born alive.” 

I am horrified.

Sophie, however, is exhilarated.  Her eyes are shining with delight.  “I can read it by myself mom!” 

“Sophie, what do you think about what you just read?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how does it make you feel?”

She thought for a minute.  “Sad.” 

I nodded.  “Me too.” 

“Why did he kill those babies, mom?” 

“I don’t know.  Some people do terrible things. “  She was still listening.  “But you know, it’s my job to protect you.  It’s my job and daddy’s job to do whatever we can to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Sophie replied.  “And grandma.  And grandpa too.  And my teachers.” 

“That’s right. All those people keep you safe.”  She looked content.  Unperturbed. 

Of course, I was the one who has already seen too many terrible things.  Who could see those babies.  Who wanted to sob at the thought.  For Sophie it was a witch.  A wolf.  A bad guy.    Read about in a safe place to probe her fear.    

Beautiful (Day) Dreamer

Sophie has been silent for awhile, her head cast to the side of her car seat, her mouth working steadily on her thumb (likely shriveled and white, as if she has sucked the life and blood out of it), listening to the infernal soundtrack of Beauty and the Beast Jr. I know all the nuances of this album. I know the subtle ways in which a cast member will pull his face wide and tight to draw forth a different voice for a villager or accent it heavily to become the clock. I know how the wardrobe rushes through her lines at one point, and the pathos with which Beauty will plead with the Beast not to die at the end. Sometimes, before I realize that I’ve begun singing along, Sophie will shush me from the back.

I am not allowed to talk. Or sing. Or even hum along.

Which is fine with me. One of the things I love about driving is how boring it is, providing me with ample opportunity for my mind to wander. Whole fabricated conversations, possible (and impossible) futures, and occasionally morbid flashes of how I will die bloom in the emptiness of my mind. The banal highway landscape disappears for chunks of time. And, when I come to, I’m surprised to find how far I’ve traveled while my thoughts have drifted, anxiously wondering how it is that we haven’t crashed.

Now, I am startled out of my reverie, when Sophia suddenly exclaims, “Mom! I’ve got a great idea!” I look into the rearview mirror. Her blue eyes are round and wide. “What if we invite the entire neighborhood to put on the play of Beauty and the Beast in our basement?!?” She’s gesticulating wildly, her hands, palms-up, drawing large ovals in the air as she speaks. If it wasn’t completely unconscious, I’d think she was mocking me. I’m lost for a moment in the thought that Sophie is a caricature of me, just as I must be a caricature of my own mother. How many generations back does this gesture go, I wonder?

“Mom?” she’s checking to see if I’m listening. I kind of wasn’t.

“Yes, that’s an interesting idea,” I say, one corner of my mouth turned up, bemused.

“We could have all the girlies from the block. And my friend Lexi….” She pauses. “Lexi doesn’t know Beauty and the Beast,” she frowns for a moment, considering this assumption (which may very well be false. I, for one, have no idea if Lexi is or isn’t familiar with Beauty and the Beast). “I’ve GOT ANOTHER IDEA. We can invite everyone to LISTEN to Beauty and the Beast in our basement. That way, everyone will know it!!!” She says this like she has discovered the cure for cancer or how to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. This is my daughter’s mission: to spread the gospel of Beauty and the Beast.

I find it charming that she has no idea that Disney has beat her to it. Her desire to share her love of this musical extravaganza, of recruiting everyone she knows to participate in her very own Spectacular Spectacular a la Moulin Rouge reminds me of my own younger self. I was older, probably about nine or so, when my best friend Christine and I had dreams of bringing the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour to the kids on the block. We spent months perfecting dances (flitting across a floor covered in strawberries and then hula dancing to the flute music at the end of Strawberry Fields), making tickets, creating marketing materials, imagining how we might build a stage. In reality, it never happened. The joy was in the possibility and the vision—the hours spent in joint imagination.

I feel a small thrill when I hear Sophie speak so passionately about her fantasy. I want her to be a dreamer and dream big.

In my youth, daydreaming saved me.

It offered me an escape from the oppressive tedium of school. Hours spent listening to teachers drone on about something easily read in a book. The constant waiting. Waiting for books, papers, tests to be passed out. Waiting for the film strip to be loaded into the projector. Waiting for the bell to ring.

All my elementary teachers said the same thing. She’s a good student, but she spends too much time daydreaming. As if it was my fault.

It offered me an escape from my bedridden state—constantly ill, often absent, frequently alone. In the absence of real relationships, I fabricated virtual ones. I would dress myself in clothes I didn’t own for dates I’d never go on to places I’ve never been. I feel sad now, reflecting on it. But at the time, it was all so beautiful, like the splendor of The Little Princess’ attic, decorated with imagination. The images in my mind were sustaining. They gave me hope.

It offered me an escape while my parents fought—eyes turned inward are blind to one’s surroundings, ears attune to an inner voice are deaf to shouting. My fertile inner life delivered me from my dismal “real” life. Books helped. The provided a window, opened the doors. They supplied endless friends and travel to exotic locales. They kept the fire of my imagination stoked.

Even now, if I don’t want to be here, I don’t have to stay. My bag is always packed.

I owe boredom my gratitude. I have read that the availability of information, the phenomenon of everything “on demand,” the constant stimulation of the digital world has all but eradicated boredom—and that this bodes poorly for creativity. It is in the moments of nothingness that something is created—whether its dramatic play or scientific advancement. Boredom necessitates change. It creates frustration. It begs filling.

These empty hours in the car have perhaps, unwittingly, become one my greatest gifts to Sophie as her parent.

Playing Games

“Let’s play Candyland!” Sophie exclaims, retrieving the game from its hiding place underneath the coffee table. Obviously not well-hidden enough.

I inwardly groan. I used to like Candyland. In fact, I was the one who suggested my sister buy it for her in the first place. As a kid, Candyland held the same mystique for me that toy stores did. Now, when I walk into a toy store, all I see is tons of junk that costs tons of money. But when I was a kid, the walls were lined with possibility. I didn’t even need to buy anything to derive pleasure from a walk down the aisles. And this was before there were Thomas the Train tables and kid-sized kitchens available for the playing. All the fun existed in my head. Candyland was like that. Nothing on that board was edible, and yet the idea of it was delicious. The candy hearts, the gum drop mountains, the ice cream floats…I couldn’t wait to get to the next treat.

Of course, I wanted Sophia to experience that. And because I practice sugar deprivation (I won’t let her drink juice, let alone eat a gum drop), I knew just how much she would love it.

So here we were setting up the pieces. “I’ll be red, because that’s my favorite.” (Not really, but it’s the closest approximation to hot pink.) “You’ll be blue because that’s YOUR favorite.” Playing along, I tell her, “You’re right!” I instruct her to put the pieces at start, shuffle the cards and set the pile face down. Because she doesn’t yet have the manual dexterity to slide the top card off the pile, I set it askance for her. “You’re the youngest, so you get to go first.” I’ve read the rules. I know how the game is played. Pleased, Sophia draws a card. “Double blues!” she practically shouts, and proceeds to place her red gingerbread boy on a random blue spot on the board. I patiently point out the path and count out two blue spaces. She slides her piece to the right spot. I go quickly, and it’s her turn again. “I want Queen Frostine!” she squeaks, and she’s digging into the pile turning over all the cards to find the picture of the princess with the ice cream cone…a marriage of her two favorite things in life. (Ice cream is occasionally permitted. It’s calcium rich. And, besides, it’s my favorite.)

This is not how the game is played. You can’t just go through the pile and pick out any old card. You have to pick the card at the top of the pile! I tell her this, and a struggle ensues! “I want the princess!”

“You have to keep taking turns and maybe you’ll get her.” This is apparently not good enough for Miss Unable-to-Delay-My-Gratification. She’s still flipping cards over and I feel my patience evaporate.

I try to remind myself that this is developmentally appropriate. That she is playing with the game in her own creative way. And what does it matter, really?

But it does. I know I’m being completely irrational, but it’s making me crazy. I tuck the cards back into a neat pile and urge her to pick the card on top. She pulls her first face card…the candy cane. Her expressive little face breaks into a huge smile. “I got the candy cane!” “Fabulous,” I tell her, “now move to the candy cane spot.” She does. I motion for her to place the Candy Cane card into the discard pile, and she grips it with her chest, her smile disappears into a scowl. “NO! IT’S MINE!”

All right. Well, it’s not like it’s going to affect the game. I let her keep it and take my turn.

It’s her turn now, only she’s too busy talking to the Candy Cane card to notice. “I want to eat you, Mr. Candy Cane!” she tells him, and pretends to gobble him up.

“Sophie, it’s your turn.”

“Oh! Okay.” She picks a card and moves her piece appropriately. I breathe a sigh of relief and go again. I get the Gingerbread Man, which sends me practically back to start. You’ve got to be kidding me. I make a mental note to take the Gingerbread Man out of all future games.

“I want the Gingerbread Man! Give him to me!” It also makes me crazy that every request is issued as a demand of late.

“Ask me nicely, please.”

“Give me the Gingerbread Man please!”

“How about, “may I have the Gingerbread Man, please?” She spits it back to me in an insincerely, sing-songy voice.

“Okay,” I relent and hand it over. The Gingerbread Man is introduced to the Candy Cane man. I can see this game is never going to end.

Nan calls, I pick up the phone. She has something serious to discuss, and I balance the phone on my shoulder, attempting to continue to play with Sophie as I listen to what she has to say.

“Mom? Is it my turn?”

I cover the mouthpiece. “Yes, go ahead.” She picks blue and promptly gets stuck in a licorice swamp.

“Yay! I’m on the licorice spot.”

“It’s not like it’s a good thing, Sophie. Now you have to miss a turn.”

“But I like licorice. I want to stay here!” Honestly. How can you play a game with a person who has no desire to win? With no competitive fire? Who wants to lose a turn?

I interrupt Nan to explain what all the racket is about. “I’m sorry,” I fess up. “we’re playing Candyland.”

“I REFUSE to play Candyland.” She tells me. “Reid always wants all of the blue cards. It makes me crazy.” I can always count on Nan to validate my experience.

Yes. I could just not play the game. Or, I could let it go and let her play the game the way she wants to…the way she thoroughly enjoys it at this point. There is plenty of time for competitive fire. To stick to the rules. To be a good sport. Not every moment is a teachable one. Sometimes, I need to just go with the flow.

And I slip all the candy cards out of the deck and hand them to her. Sophie beams. “I love Candyland,” she tells me. And I am a little dismayed to realize that, though I do like to play, I am not a kid anymore.

The Work of Parents is Play

Sophia and I have fallen into a relaxed routine in the morning. I make breakfast and she plays beside me. It allows me to have subtle input into her play, without actively directing it. I can help her sustain the play activity, adding voices, suggesting ideas, while taking care of some necessary tasks.

I never thought this day would come.

I have long been Sophia’s playmate. I’ve sat through countless (and endless) pretend meals served by the surly waitress at Sophie’s café. I’ve received questionable health care (and been charged outrageous co-pays) by Dr. Sophia at the hospital. I’ve been turned into a cat, a cow, and a car, under the spell of The Great Sophini and her magic wand. Sophia didn’t come up with these activities on her own (though she was always an enthusiastic participant). I taught her how to engage in these possibilities, to inhabit these fantasies, to pretend. And then she ran with it.

One might think that play comes naturally to children. And it absolutely does. Children imitate in play the activities they observe in the world around them. It was no surprise that Sophia’s first attempts at make believe involved talking on a cell phone and food preparation, two things I do on a daily basis, multiple times a day. Play is how children begin to make sense of the world and their place in it.

But there is so much in our society that serves to inhibit play, that squashes and replaces innate play impulses: two of the biggest offenders, I believe, are toys and television.

Here is my beef with modern toys: they have become so sophisticated that they have essentially put children out of a job, rendering imagination obsolete. A kitchen that sizzles, a ball that giggles and rolls on its own, frogs that have several pre-recorded rote responses in English and in Spanish—the very toys that appear to inspire play, in reality, wind up subverting it. They play FOR the children. Kids merely have to push a button to get a response. Parents may notice that these toys are not played with for any length of time. They are picked up, admired momentarily, and discarded. They fill basements, playrooms and garbage dumps. They do nothing to inspire creativity, wonder, and discovery (except perhaps in a few future engineers who disassemble them to see how they work). At best, they are boring. At worst, they’re annoying as hell.

I find TV particularly insidious because, at first glance, it appears that it inspires ideas for play. In reality, television is a thief of imagination. Kids become the characters they see. They act out scenes from their favorite shows. They indulge fantasies of other worlds, other ways of being. But if you listen carefully to this kind of play, you come to realize that the children are working off of scripts. They have no imagination outside of the images they have been fed. They don’t know how to develop a unique character, a novel world. This phenomenon, in turn, feeds the toy industry that produces all the figurines, props, and costumes that allow children to recreate what they’ve observed on TV.

This is not to say that all toys (or even all television) is bad. In fact, many low tech toys that are facsimiles of real objects—or better yet the REAL OBJECTS themselves—are great props for the imagination.

Case in point: Sophia is obsessed with all things medical. Perhaps she’s trying to master her fear of needle shots. Perhaps she is trying to emulate her grandfather, who is a doctor. Or maybe it’s simply inspired by her great love for Curious George, who often finds himself in the hospital with a broken limb or an ingested puzzle piece. Regardless, as medicine is her current interest, I decided to try to find her a doctor’s kit. I quickly became frustrated with the expensive packs of molded plastic I found even in the best toy stores. Nothing looked “real” or remotely worth the money. I decided to look online and found a blog written by a mom who shared my frustration. She said that real stethoscopes and blood pressure machines could be purchased for less than what some toy companies charged for the fake stuff. Turns out, she was right. I quickly assembled a doctor’s kit that consisted of a light pen, a real eye chart, a stethoscope, a blood pressure machine, an old ace bandage, a pin that read Dr. Sophia Moore, a medicine syringe that looked satisfyingly like a needle shot, a child-sized lab coat, and a tendonitis elbow brace—all for under $30. I haven’t brought out all of the pieces yet, but already, the ace bandage is the number one utilized “toy” in our house.

That ace bandage was sitting in my dresser drawer for years. It only became a toy when it was introduced as such.

Play is a life skill; it brings joy into relationships, transforms work into passion, makes life worth living. Those who know how to play have the ability to think and act creatively. They are fun to be around. When I watch Sophia initiate a play activity with a peer, I can see the foundation of leadership skills taking hold.

But like most life skills, play needs to be taught. There is nothing simple about being a teacher of play. It requires a certain lack of self-consciousness and a lot of silliness, a willingness to get down on the ground and become everything you’re not, an ability to transform the everyday into the extraordinary. But of all the responsibilities I have as a parent, it is the one in which I take the greatest pleasure and reap the greatest rewards.