Imaginary land

        I always dream of this imaginary land, which stands for purity and peace, joy and prosperity. Maybe somewhere I dreamt of is not somewhere I live right now. For me it is something real and I am so familiar with it, and I have met it many, many times in some kind of mysterious ways.

Stage photo from Bridge to Terabithia, 2007.

        I have not seen this place when I was born. It came to me while I was left at home at very young age. My parents were both busy at work. I could hardly saw them until the mealtime came. The door was locked to prevent me sneaking out from home. I have nothing to do but read the picture books. I can still remember on that picture it said “welcome to play with us!” with the background of a white house in the forest. At that time I believed such place was really exists. The imaginary land began to reveal itself to my daily life since then.

        At my age of four, my mother aborted her second child. After I grew up, they told me that it was a boy. I realized that, they were so frightened to conceive a second child at that time because of the dreadful One Child Policy. If they insisted to have the baby, one of them would lose the job the government provided. How could my mother willing to give up this urban job after years of striving from the poor rural country? But everything changes after the abortion. I could not figure out why my life became so cold and tough when I was so young. Did it might be that mourning to the unborn baby made my mother changed her temper and behavior? Why did she act weird and irrational, and being a fan of destroying things and suddenly yelling at others? My brain was too immature to analyze the whole picture. Every happy feelings fade away my four year old. I was finally falling from the warm and solid ground into a black hole filled with fear and cold.

        But I know my imaginary land never abandoned me. One day afternoon, my aunt persuaded me, or pushed me, to recite one story written in a storybook. Something retained in my mind forever since then. Even now I can still remember the sunset shadow reflected on the white wall in the bedroom while we were working on that story, which took us hours, and which seemingly tells about how a little girl finds a magic plant that can bear plenty of golden seeds. From then on, I could connect the sunlight with something warm, delightful, and companionable. I discovered the charm of lights when I began to learn photography. I am always shocked by the beautiful sunlight covering all secular beings and making them even brighter. At those moments I felt like I was reconnected with the place I should be. The lights also recall me about that afternoon when my aunt and I spent together. Perhaps through these lights, I can find the way back home.

        Sometimes the information comes to me from imaginary land through music. I know a singer whose name is called Anna; in her newly released album Grace, I can tell her strong imploded emotions originated from her neglected childhood trauma. I began to know someone was once being in the darkness, and then they reunited through creating arts—through music: the expression of emotion; through photography: the capture of lights’ beauty; or through literature: the narrative of bleeding and pain.

       I also love the book Bridge to Terabithia, which described an imaginary land where Jess and Leslie found their own place. I firstly saw this story from the movie shooting in 2007. On the prelude, Jess created a beautiful, dramatic, colorful imaginary land in where monsters and elf exists. Jess found friendship there, and he learned how to be courageous and begin to appreciate the days with his friend Leslie. He also tries to open his heart, and had seen the place in faith. With the music and the picture showed in the movie, I was also touched by this story and my imaginary land overlapped with what they invented in the forest, the place called Terabithia, which Leslie give the name to.

      I would not say my imaginary land could offer me the resources for art creation, but I would rather to say I seek to go back there again. Even though I can only meet with this mysterious place or just few seconds each time, my heart is still softening by that beauty it reveals to me . I also feel the gentle protection from my imaginary land, and being loved by the mysterious and pure hearts. The place is exactly where I seek for and where I belong.