Taking A Walk With My Imagination

One day in late February, I decided to go outside for a walk. The sun was shining, and it was fairly warm for a winter day. I thought it would be good to get some exercise. My imagination, feeling a little cooped up, wanted to come along. It thought it would be good to get some inspiration.

I trekked along the side of the road, headphones in, music playing, hood pulled up to keep the wind off my face. A little ways down the road, I passed by my neighbour’s farm, and waved to one of the boys who was playing with their dog.

Further down, in the middle of one of their corn fields, was a large puddle of water. The constrasting rich brown and reflected vibrant blue caught my eye as aesthetically striking.

“You know what that is?” asked my imagination in my ear.

“I assume the correct answer in your opinion is not going to be a puddle in a field?” I replied.

It giggled. “Obviously not. That there is a desert where the wind has blown the sand into waves of dunes. And there, in the heart where it may seem inhospitable, lies an oasis, sought out and fought over by the local wildlife.”

We went on. I turned down a side road. We came across a different puddle at the edge of the grass field that produced hay for dairy cows.

“Aha, it is the lake in the grasslands where the fairies venture to for picnics. They often invite the mice to join them.” Imagination smiled at the whimsy in her story.

We continued walking. Not much further down the road, we noticed frozen water in one of the ditches that lined the road.

“Ready, set, go!”

“Oh, is there a race happening?”

Imagination grinned. “Yup. This is a speed skating course, and the mice are having a competition today.”

A bit further down the road, instead of ice, there was snow lining the banks of the ditch, beneath the shadow of a tall tree.

“Ah, there are the seasonal townhouse apartments for the snow fairies,” Imagination explained. “When spring comes, the snow fairies will migrate back up north to the Canadian territories.”

When we came to the line of evenly spaced trees creating a wind break to protect a nearby farmhouse, I recognized that we were near the end of this road, and the halfway point of my typical walking route.

“The sentinels salute to us with a wave of their branches.” Imagination waved back at them. “They report that there hasn’t been any suspicious activity in this area. Not that anyone would dare do anything under the watch of these dutiful soldiers.”

“Oh, these trees aren’t a section of an old castle wall anymore?”

Imagination shrugged. “You were correct when you said that the farmhouse is a bit too far away to make sense as the castle’s keep, and the field inbetween definitely can’t represent a castle on its own.”

“Ah. That makes sense that you’d try something different then.” We got to the end of the road, and turned around to begin heading back home. “You know,” I said contemplatively, “these trees could be similar to The Great Wall of China, built to defend the borders of the country of Farm.”

Imagination grinned. “Oooh, that works! But we need a better name than for the country than Farm.”

“We’ll come up with a better one during our next walk,” I promised her.

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