Dream On!

I woke up wondering about Lucy’s Buzz and what would I write today. Sometimes I’m filled with ideas, but today my brain seemed empty.

This morning, a friend sent me an article about things highly successful people do. One of the things highly successful people do, according to this article, is daydream. Now, I’m not saying that I’m highly successful, although I have been at times in my life, but I am a daydreamer.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve done it. My family lived in the country in Michigan, USA. There were only three families in the entire neighborhood. Out ‘back’ in the acreage behind our house there was vast area of land and forest and a stream, and eventually a man-made lake. Someone was going to develop the area, but never did while I grew up there; they just made the lake and stocked it with fish. I used to go fishing there. Took a bamboo pole, a little red and white bobber and a can of worms that I had dug up that morning. I caught small fish and would bring them back to the pond on our land, but mostly I just sat there at the edge of the lake and daydreamed while the round red and white bobber bobbed.

The pine tree forest, a good walk from our house, was my playground. I used to go there alone and dream. Dream that I was a princess and the forest was my castle. The sun would shine down through the pine branches like golden veils. I would lie on the pine needles and pretend that each tree was a part of the castle, that I would one day meet my prince charming and all would be grand.

I once climbed the neighbors’ giant oak tree and sat there for hours thinking up stories I would write. It took Mrs. Froebel some time to convince me to come down. I wrote my first story when I was 9-years-old. It was entitled, The Mystery of Beggarsbush Bog. Beggarsbush was the name my parents gave our property. The story was such a mystery that I couldn’t figure it out. The plot escaped me. I once talked with the famous mystery writer Elmore Leonard, and he told me that he, too, always had troubles with the plot, that he would write 100 pages before the plot became clear! I guess my 9-year-old self was in good company.

There’s no pine tree forest near my house in Sri Lanka, but I often sit on my couch and look at the pretty antique brass candle holders that I’ve collected and look at my favorite ever photo, ‘The Drummer’ and daydream away.

I’ve come up with some good ideas while my mind wanders. Lipton and I were once sitting outside the office of the lawyer who was going to draw up the papers for our photography business. We sat there quietly in the shade, waiting for the lawyer. I don’t know what was going through Lipton’s mind, but mine went off on its usual tangent. We didn’t have a name for the company and all of sudden (it’s always all of a sudden that ideas come to me), that here we were sitting in the shade of a tree and so we should call our photography business ShadeTree Productions. After all, we take photographs in the shade, not in the blazing Sri Lankan sun. It worked; we loved it. And people remember it.

Do you daydream? Did you daydream as kid? I’d love to hear your stories!

The article also said that highly successful

people surround themselves with beauty.

I've always liked beauty over practicality.

I must be highly successful! :-)

Check out my photography website at: http://www.shadetreeSL.com

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