Blue Sky

We returned from a southern California vacation Monday night to find snow falling in Seattle. As much as I love softly-falling December snow, I have to admit that March snow is less endearing, especially after five days in the LA sun. Still, there was something slightly wonderful about the white flakes illuminated by the headlights of cars at the airport, of all that hectic travel energy against a sudden and jarring winter backdrop. To step into an airplane on a sunny, breezy afternoon and exit in the same, wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic a transition. Sometimes, life calls for contrast and Seattle definitely delivered.

Oh, I grumbled, of course. But, secretly, the snow felt a little bit like magic.

We spent most of four days at Disneyland and I dare anyone to walk down Main Street, USA towards that glittering pink and blue castle, without breathing in a little magic. Say what you will about the Disney marketing machine or about Mickey Mouse destroying copyright law, Disneyland has magic in the air and, when you’re there, you can’t help but feel inspired by the immense potential of the human imagination. It’s a world where a fairy tale castles stands at the end of a turn-of-the-century business district, where you can walk from historical Missouri to idealized New Orleans, by way of a Hawaii where the flowers sing.

One area in Disney’s California Adventure, the Blue Sky Cellar, acts as a sort of museum to the creative processes of the Imagineers who work on the theme parks. They say they call the first phase of design on any new attraction the “blue sky” phase. It’s a time when no idea is too big or too crazy or too impractical to be considered. Anything goes in the blue sky phase.

I think I need more blue sky in my writing life (living where I do, I could use some more in my actual life too, but that’s another matter entirely). I’m enamored of the idea of writing without constraint, without being hemmed in by any expectations of the final product. Writing for the absolute peak of what my imagination can render. Writing for the sheer joy of creation. Wild, out-there, fantastic, free, joyous writing.

Except for (almost) daily morning pages, I didn’t think much about writing while on vacation. It was good to spend a few days just living. Now, that I’m back though, the blue sky, it’s waiting out there for me.