Doctors offices, trolls, and gnomes.

              Doctor’s offices. They are funny things. They have a way of getting under your skin...the methodical beeping, the knowledge you are accomplishing nothing except impatience. Nurses constantly rush around, their brains tallying the scores of past patients, the kid that scraped his knee, what should they cook for dinner? My own brain? It was as dead as a doornail...smashed through several doors. After sitting in an office for 20 minutes waiting for my friend, I was alerted that my time in the ‘soft’ chair was not even close to being finished...and at that my imagination had had enough. Stamping its feet impatiently, it unfurled itself creakily. I hadn’t opened it for a long, long time...much to my shame. Dusting off rust and leftover ideas, it leaped out of its chair, pointed across the street at an interesting, quirky old shop, and I reluctantly took it’s offered hand and walked outside. My imagination had been awakened, and with it my curiosity. It was thirsty for adventure...my dry spell of limitless procrastination and dead ideas was done. It was time to explore.

It all started with a game of leapfrog. I hovered cautiously in front of a sixlane ‘road.’ Salt Lakeians have funny ideas like that. I, being raised in a town where a one-lane road is called a highway, thought this six lane ‘street’was intimidating, to say the least. My destination sat straight across from me, and I gazed at it through the zooming cars and glittering bumpers. I had to make it across...I had to. That place looked magical...and I would never forgive myself if I passed it by.

My legs however, were not quite as willing. Hesitation flowed through my bones like liquid lead, holding me down with invisible strings...did I really need to look at that shop? Couldn’t I just take a picture and call it a day...?

NO!!!!!!

My imagination screamed in my face so loudly that it put my brain into shock...and when it recovered I was fully armed in froggy armor. Let the game of leap frog commence. I could basically hear the cheesy arcade music in the background...

And so I scuttled across the road. In my brain I was dodging through cars, ducking and rolling between the slices of danger, the sweeps of daringness and the doses of cunning knowledge. In reality I waited patiently as the cars passed, and when the road was clear, I looked ‘left’, ‘right’, left’, ‘cross’ just like it says to do in a kindergarteners school book.

I like my brains version better.

But I had made it. I stood on the sidewalks edge, the pavement steaming and sizzling beneath my feet and the sun baking my skin. In front of me was my destination. A shop was nestled between rows of huge flowers and bushes, trees and shrubs. It was quiet, despite being placed in the center of a city. It was magical.

I politely walked to the door of the store, sneaking glances in the bushes to catch sight of hidden fairies and gnomes...but my eyes snatched nothing atfirst. Heaving a sigh of vague disappointment, I took a step inside. Air conditioning hit full force, and my body sighed in relief as the 105*F weather was melted off of me. Gazing around, I was surprised. No giants hunched in corners, no mushrooms popped up through the floor. There wasn’t a fairy ring looming in the center of a huge arch. There were just shelves of touristy goodness, a rack of sunglasses...a nail with a few aprons hanging on it. There were a lot of birdcages, that was for sure...but nothing out of the ordinary. I walked around for a few minutes, and then my imagination took control again. Ornery little thing.  

Look at the little things.

Just a whisper, but I took the hint. I decided to go around the store one more time...and look a little closer. I searched the corners...and again, surprise hit me. Hidden in every corner, were tiny trinkets of adventures. Figurines of dragons and fairies...they had been turned to stone by an evil witch. Glass bottles lined a windowsill...I am positive they held liquidized dreams and wishes.There were four clay jewelry boxes, but I could obviously tell that they held invisible imagination pills. Those are always the easiest kinds to sneak to people who need help in their imagination growing. I gazed at all of these little things, and as I slowly got more and more enveloped in the exciting mysteries I was unfolding...I heard a bird caw.

Startled, my eyes darted to where the sound had come from...nothing. But I wasn’t fooled that easy. I tiptoed to a huge birdcage nestled in a corner covered in a blanket, and with shaking hands...looked inside. A huge, bright blue bird was bulging inside, anger lining its eyes and beak. It cawed again, loud and obnoxious. It was trying to tell me something... but I wasn’t sure what it was...and I didn’t own the shop, so it didn’t matter. I reluctantly left thebird, and started walking toward the door to walk through the flowers...when I realized something. The owner was nowhere to be found.

Curious...

I couldn’t let that go unexplored.

I looked cautiously around...no owner. There was only one place I hadn’t looked. A door was nestled into the wall, basically shining with mystery. Employees Only! Was taped clumsily on the wooden panels...but the door was cracked open. If I peeked, I wouldn’t ‘technically’ be going in. 

I took the bait, and, tiptoeing up to the door...I looked inside. That is when I spotted the troll. This store wasn’t owned by a person at all....just a troll dressed in a sponsor hat and jean pants. And surrounding the troll, were birds. A good dozen cages were lining the walls around him...colorful birds tweeting and clawing and rustling. They were trapped.

Instantly my brain wanted to set them free from the cruel clutches of the troll...but I knew I would never be able to do it without the aid of my sister, Nadine Brandes. It would have to be saved for another day.

Witha defeated sigh, I turned and left the poor birds to their imprisonment, promising to return someday and set them free. It was time to continue exploring, and so I returned to the fresh air outside. The sun was still pouring its beams down, liquid heat seeping into every crevice and crack, and I could basically see the barely-existent humidity of the air dissipating with a sizzle. It was hot. My eyes, seeking a refreshing and cooling place to stand, located an ounce of shadow behind a wall. I instantly sought it out. As I turned around the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks.

A tunnel loomed in front of me. Dozens of wind chimes hung on the side, twinkling and swaying in the slight breeze like pebbles in a stream, and charms and birdhouses made of glass hung at intervals, filling the empty spaces with sparkles. All along the floor were pots of fresh flowers in every color imaginable, and the smell of them lingered in the air. At the end of the tunnel was a bright courtyard, bursting with heat (the one reason I didn’t go down there)...it was an exact scene from my novel, a scene that I hadn’t been able to imagine for weeks. God had shown me what to write about, and it was way better than I could have ever imagined.

But there was still more to explore. During the next 15 minutes, I weaved between paths lined with ivy and creativity. I ducked under arches surrounded by clay mushrooms and glass balls dripping in color and beauty. I explored. I discovered. I imagined.

By the time it was time to go back, my imagination was filled and overflowing with things to write about and inspire. It was bursting, just like a wet sponge, to be released on the crisp white pages of my novel. With a twinge of regret, I dared to play leapfrog once again, and settled back into the doctor’s office.

But this time I had the images of fairies flitting across branches, of gnomes covering themselves up with leaves to escape the heat, and of the birds (in the near future) flying to freedom in the crisp air, to keep me company. I had gone on an adventure with the guidance of my dear imagination, and it would be an adventure to remember.