You get an idea. Perhaps it is the best idea in the history of ideas, though you and just about everyone you have ever known sincerely doubts it. No matter. You have this idea and you must follow it until its bitter end — usually to a place called Harsh Reality.
If you could see me right now I'd be waving and drawing attention to myself.
Yup.
I'm that person.
Rabid with ideas but completely insusceptible to inspiration.
Now, usually these notions are harmless. However sometimes they wake me up at night, which means they are likely waking my husband, too.
And that can be dangerous.
"Who died?"
"Nobody. I just had an idea. ... What if we were to have an art show for children and invite all the neighbors to submit their favorite pieces?”
"Sounds fine .... but it would sound even better sometime other than whatever ungodly hour it is right now. Go to sleep."
Ok ... That's not the best example.
A better one would be the time ... back in January ... when I was trying to keep the kids busy one winter vacation and thought it would be pretty awesome to make a Parade Dragon for Chinese New Year.
Neither fact that the Chinese New Year had already passed nor the reality that the winter months are not optimal for parading around in the Northeast could rain on my parade.
I had cardboard boxes. I had red paint. I had yards and yards of shimmery fabric, and most of all I had a cool idea for Peoples' Parade — an Independence Day extravaganza that brought out all the big-idea and little-idea people together in one place.
Most of all, I had six months to get it all together.
I could just see it play out:
Kids would come from all corners of the county to march to the beat of this drummer.
We'd line the driveway with kids gluing do-dads and twiddly bits and all manner of sparkly attachments to the miles of fabric our dragon would trail.
The kids, as kids are wont to do, would come up with their own labor-intensive additions. In our case, that entailed making dozens of dragon-shaped cookies to be handed out along the parade route.
“Oh ... this will be fun,” you think as you wonder if handing out homemade cookies during a parade is something that one might need a permit to do, or at least a brief but thorough inspection from the health department?
“No,” you answer, fingers crossed. “It's not as if we're selling anything.”
But alas your mind’s eye doesn’t have 20/20 vision:
Vacations. ... Holidays ... schedules ... never seem to match up.
Or that's what you tell yourself ... and the kids ... when folks start declining your invitation and you realize everyone is going to be busy that day doing something other than walking in a parade under a cardboard dragon.
Not that you lose hope. Not even when the kids, who called at the second-to-last minute to join in ... but changed their minds at the actual-last-minute. You know they made the decision BEFORE they saw you walking down the street with your box of Dayglo-colored fluff and your bags of individually-wrapped (and slightly over browned) sugar cookies.
That's just how it goes.
There's always room for improvement.
Something to think about, anyway. ...
For next year.
When your plans will be bigger and better than ever.
Little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
— Robert Burns'
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