last fall marked the time when both of my friend virginia’s children were old enough to go to school all day. this milestone brings about relief for some and grief for others. in virginia’s case, there was probably a bit of both. but what i noticed from the outside looking in was that virginia wasted no time channeling energy into her vocation. there didn’t seem to be a transition period or a need to brainstorm about how new pockets of time could best be spent. she just seemed to know what to do. “i feel like a new person,” she said.

i am a few years away from the days of two o’clock carpool but i find myself looking upon virginia’s vocational clarity and renewed sense of identity with envy. i am so often caught up in the whirlwind of parenting small children that i forget to imagine other scenarios. a few weeks ago, my therapist asked me to brainstorm about what kinds of things i would do if  there were no limits of income, time, space, stage of life, et cetera. i sat in silence for a full five minutes before i managed to mumble something about a yoga retreat in some sort of tropical paradise. then came the barrage of questions. “would you preach? would you teach? would you counsel? would you write?” to all of these i answered, “i don’t know.”

a few days later, in an attempt to boost my fun-quotient in light of the monkey’s recent daddy stage, i engaged my four-year-old in a rainy day collage-making activity. we each had a piece of poster board and a stack of magazines, and we spent the better part of two hours cutting out images and arranging them to our liking. while the monkey was busy cutting out smiley faces, i was having an internal debate with myself. i resisted cutting out yoga journal phrases such as “live in the moment,” and other notions to which i should subscribe. instead, i created a collage of things that truly excited or described me.

two weeks later, i still become giddy when i look at this mix of cool place settings, fabulous red hair, outdoor vistas, colorful throw pillows, funky stockings and shoes, and most of all, modern rugs and furniture. is it sad that the most vivid alternate reality i can conjure up is one where white home decor would not quickly fall victim to tracked-in mud and yogurt-covered fingers? despite the embarassingly material nature of my longings, i had such fun creating this little two-dimensional world. as i was cutting and pasting, there was a part of me that woke up from a deep, monolithic mom trance. and as silly as it sounds, i think that same part of me, when pressed for deeper revelation, could potentially lead me beyond the world of lime green chaise lounges and into a new season.

i plan on making more collages. who knows what wildness will emerge from the silence? who cares how irrelevent those two-dimentional windows into my soul may seem? i want to cultivate the kind of imagination that will help me feel, as virginia describes, “like a new person” with each passing phase.