My terrarium is a joy. \u00a0Houseplants that require a drop of water every couple of months can flourish under my care. \u00a0I’ve managed to keep a peace lily and a Christmas cactus limping along for over a decade, and an aging philodendron languishes in the basement, but they haven’t grown in a while now, and I realize that such existence is not natural. \u00a0It isn’t that I don’t love my houseplants, for I love most living things (notable exceptions being poison ivy and Japanese beetles). \u00a0I merely forget to water them.<\/p>\n

Forget<\/em> is not the correct term. \u00a0I know plants require water and I see them every day. \u00a0Time races by so fast, however, that when I see the peace lily drooping and gasping, I ask, “Didn’t I just water you day before yesterday?” \u00a0If I was a planner, I might have a monthly checklist that orders me,\u00a0“Water houseplants every Tuesday,”\u00a0<\/em>and I would cross out the assignment and know if it had been several Tuesdays since the wilting lily and the patient philodendron had a drink.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I was born with the genetic defect “Planning Deficit Disorder,” or PDD. \u00a0I cannot accommodate, much less control, future events. \u00a0Now<\/em> is all there is. \u00a0Although PDD mystifies (or more often exasperates) planners around me, the condition is not all bad. \u00a0One has up-to-the-minute flexibility, and unpleasant tasks and decisions can be delayed indefinitely. \u00a0Folks with PDD are able to save a lot of time, or at least devote that time to what we want to do\u00a0now. \u00a0<\/em>Once I saw a greeting card that said, “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.” \u00a0I snatched up the card to give to the daughter who inherited the PDD gene from me. \u00a0She opened it at her birthday party twenty minutes later, and loved it. \u00a0We often share this truth with frustrated planners who are pressing us for action when it is far too early to be thinking about anything but the problems and opportunities of\u00a0now.<\/em> \u00a0But enough about my PDD- I realize other people’s medical and psychological issues are not nearly as fascinating as one’s own.<\/p>\n

In my thriving terrarium, I placed a miniature English cottage- one of those trinkets that someone somewhere probably collects, but in my hands seems to have no origin or purpose. \u00a0“Where did I get this? \u00a0What do I do with it?” \u00a0<\/em>Too nice to toss in the trash, to useless to give away, this humble bit of clutter found meaning as a fairy house nestled among the succulents.<\/p>\n

My favorite six-year-old immediately noticed the addition. \u00a0“You put a little house in here!”<\/p>\n

“Yes, I did!”<\/p>\n

“What if a\u00a0fairy<\/em> came to live in it?”<\/p>\n

“Do you think one might come?”<\/p>\n

“No, because she can’t open the door.”<\/p>\n

Ah, the yawning chasm between imagination and cold, hard facts. \u00a0I had a conversation once, when I was about six, with my daddy, the parent from whom I inherited the PDD gene. \u00a0A kid in the neighborhood had made the outrageous allegation that the tooth fairy was not real. \u00a0He claimed he had proof. \u00a0He scoffed at fairies in general and even doubted, (stopping short of complete denial), the existence of Santa Claus. \u00a0Was his heresy to be believed? \u00a0Had I been duped? \u00a0Was the magical world of tiny, laughing, winged girls and boys singing and dancing in the flowers all a lie? \u00a0It seemed that something rare, fragile, and beautiful, like Tinkerbell, was fading – hovering on the brink of death. \u00a0I determined to ask my daddy. \u00a0He was the smartest person I knew, an unfailing bulwark in crisis, and I was sure that he believed in fairies, because he told me stories about them. \u00a0I was waiting when he pulled in the driveway and opened the door of his pickup truck.<\/p>\n

“Are fairies real, Daddy? \u00a0David says they aren’t. \u00a0Not even the tooth fairy.”<\/p>\n

What does a hard-working father do when he comes home after a long day in the gritty world of the small-town, family-owned home and auto store of the 1960’s- a real, hard world of sales tickets and credit applications, finance plans, accounts payable, and tire changes? \u00a0He expects a kiss and a hot supper, but instead faces an impossible question from a tender, imaginative child who must inevitably grow up, whether he is ready or not<\/em>. \u00a0I am quite certain my father did not plan for this important moment. \u00a0Now<\/em> is all there is, you know. \u00a0He answered from his heart and his own experience.<\/p>\n

Kneeling, Daddy looked into my eyes. \u00a0“Well, Debbie, fairies may be real; and they may not. \u00a0But isn’t it more fun to think that they are?”<\/p>\n

Imagination and hard facts can live happily ever after, with the right amount of water. \u00a0Too much rots the roots and too little hardens the ground and withers the leaves. \u00a0A lot of truth can bloom in a story, and the world of imagination is a lovely place to visit, as long as we remember where the boundaries lie and we know when it is time to come home.<\/p>\n

“Yes, Daddy, it is more fun. \u00a0And Zoe, if she can’t open the door to the fairy house, perhaps she could fly in the window.”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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My terrarium is a joy. \u00a0Houseplants that require a drop of water every couple of months can flourish under my care. \u00a0I’ve managed to keep a peace lily and a Christmas cactus limping along for over a decade, and an aging philodendron languishes in the basement, but they haven’t grown in a while now, and … Continue reading On Imagination<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trailtalk"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/terrarium.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}