Tall Tales

So I had my kids write tall tales yesterday… these are supposed to be stories that are exaggerated and false, but with a grain of truth in them. Well, kids being kids, they skipped the grain of truth part and dove right into the fantasy part.

Here are two of the most poignant stories….

First, a giant pickle tearing the world apart with his bear hands..

The second… imagine a world of hearts. All the people are hearts and everything is heart shaped. Then a giant vacuum comes and sucks all the hearts and all the color out of the world…

Deep, huh?

At first these stories seemed uber ridiculous to me. But the more I look at them, how beautiful they are…, how they speak to a psychic, cosmic reality… doesn’t it feel like there are many forces sucking the love out of our lives daily? Some going at full speed and some low-pressure vacuums, lightly taking the air out of us?

And how do we deal with this force? Do we pretend to be phallic symbols, towers of strength, monsters, idealized images of ourselves, trying to conquer everything it feels like we are at war with? Do we break down and ride slowly into an undefined and unseen future, like the “ghost trains” in many of the kids drawings? Do we fashion ourselves both princesses and mermaids, diving between land and ocean whenever the other gets too unaccepting of us? Or are we actively creating a new picture….