PERMISSION TO PLAY : Whimsy : #p2play

“It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true”
― Freeman John Dyson

This week I did something that is probably *very* old hat and passe to a lot of people – I went on Pinterest and spent a few hours looking at pretty pictures. Don’t get me wrong, because I love Pinterest. The thing is, I have always used it as a place to “pin” stuff I find on websites. I never have really spent much time on it re-pinning things from other people’s boards.

To be honest, it’s overwhelmingly amazing. Every time I log on just to pin something, I wind up seeing 500 things I want to look at. It’s like a kid in a toy store. And I can’t decide which to look at first! It’s all grabbing my attention and then I start scrolling and look there’s MORE flowers over there and what’s that color palette and is that a cake I can actually make and oh look at that painting and… *brain overload*. Then I start feeling a little guilty that my life wouldn’t be very “pin-able”. I mean, I didn’t even make my bed this morning. And the last time I made a cake was about five years ago. And my garden is looking a little toasted from the sun and the fact it’s suddenly summer.

Before I can get too self-critical, I click away from Pinterest and go back to whatever feed I was reading or website I was looking at before I hopped over there. Back to real life.

So why did I end up at Pinterest, doing what overwhelms me? When the topic “whimsy” came up on my calendar, and in the midst of this “Permission to Play” challenge, I really wanted to investigate a *visual* idea of what “whimsy” meant to me. I couldn’t articulate it at all, and I couldn’t translate my unclear thoughts into any sort of creativity. I was just… stuck. Overthinking it.

So I decided to head over to Pinterest, type “whimsy” in the search box, and make my own “whimsy board”.

I realized very quickly that my somewhat unclear mental perception of whimsy does not connect with my *visual* sense of whimsy, meaning: I know whimsy when I see it. And I saw a lot of whimsical things that sang out to me and *really* inspired me.

I learned from my pinning adventure that I love twinkling lights, colorful balloons, magical castles lit from within, the concept of flying, the Eiffel Tower, flowers… and a sense of magic coming from deep within. A sense of timelessness. A sense of wonder. A sense of fullness.

Of course, some of this I knew about myself (I’m a twinkle light fanatic!) but some of it I *didn’t* know.

For instance, I’m not the least bit interested in travel but I found myself drawn to images of Paris at night over and over again.

Flying things, whether they be butterflies or fairy wings, appeal to me on a very deep level.

Umbrellas came up quite a few times, which is ironic since I pretty much refuse to use one (as a child, I constantly pinched my fingers trying to close umbrellas so now they frighten me a bit…)

Castles? I am NOT a fairy tale girl. But fantasy castles, especially those lit up at night? Wow. Awe-inspiring.

All of this pinning, which is a very “typical” activity for a lot of people, allowed me to shine a light on myself in a new way. The things that I *think* I might be drawn to and the things that I *am* drawn to can sometimes be completely different. What I mean by that is that if you asked me before I ventured over to Pinterest what kind of images I expected myself to repin on a board titled “whimsy”, I probably would have said something about the beach and sunshine and gardens. But my “whimsy board” contains very little of those things. It contains meadows and night and city streets.

I learned something big (besides the fact that Pinterest is completely addictive) and that’s this:
even at 39 years old, I still don’t know a whole lot about myself. I can tell myself a story of who I am, but I really don’t know the half of it. I think there’s still a lot to discover about myself. That’s so refreshing to me. It actually gives me a sense of hope.

Maybe there’s a lot more magic inside me that I can coax out.

If you are interested, my Pinterest “Whimsy Board” is at http://pinterest.com/gingerblue/whimsy/. I think I’ll actually be doing “Bliss Habits Boards” at Pinterest more often, because it was such an enlightening experience. Imagine that, something on the internet being *good* for you!

If you’re interested, I’d love for you to create your own Whimsy Board on Pinterest, and share the link here. I’d love to see the visual expression of what you believe whimsy to be.