LETTERS FROM HOME: IMAGINATION: EVERYONE'S SECRET WEAPON

Jan. 9, 1997

Dear Pat,

Lately, DC has been wondering about the workings of her mind. A few years ago she was longing for twins and got dogs. Last year, she dreamt a tree fell on our car shortly before one actually did. More recently, she'd been concerned that the dogs and her dad were going to be in a traffic accident. Turned out she was the chauffeur when it happened.

She wonders if it's possible somehow to cause these things to happen, skewed as they are, by wanting or fearing them. Or is this simply the ability to anticipate, just as a good athlete does?

I tell her everyone has intuitions about events that eventually occur. In the fourth grade I had a crush on a girl named Sherry and dreamt one Saturday night that she was in my Sunday school class. Sherry didn't go to my church, but dreams don't care. Except the next morning when I arrived at Sunday school, there was Sherry along with all the other visiting Brownies.

I didn't know what to think then. Now I think we can know such things and maybe make them occur solely because we've imagined them. It's not as hocus-pocusy as it sounds.

Before hitting a golf shot, students are told to imagine the shot. Watch it flying toward the hole. Then your body can recreate the shot for real.

In the same sense, people who are fearful are like magnets for negative experiences because they've already imagined over and over the experience they fear occurring.

Imagination may be the most powerful force on Earth. That's why movies and television influence us so much. They are like waking dreams, expressions of many imaginations. They are real but they are not real. So why do we have to keep telling ourselves it's only a movie?

Now DC's concerned about how her fears might be affecting Hank, who's not what you'd call a people dog.

Hank was discovered by DC in the park next to our house, a whimpering basket case of a puppy who'd been abandoned and without doubt abused. It would be natural for him to be fearful then and so he remains. He barks at any noise and at anyone he doesn't know really well. And worse.

One day we received a phone call from our next-door neighbor David. He asked if we'd retrieve his shoe for him. Seems David had come onto the back porch minutes earlier to ask to borrow a plunger but didn't get far enough to knock. Hank had raced in from the back yard and repelled the invader by snatching his shoe.

We both see how the dogs reflect our own emotions. If we're happy they're happy and vice versa. If we're fearful they're fearful.

DC is a worrier, one who wonders if every sound in the house might have been made by a clumsy burglar. She often awakens in the middle of the night full of concern about her practice, the house, a patient, bills, the dogs.

I try to reassure her but might as well try to console Hank when he's barking at a shadow.

Being knocked off her feet for a few weeks has made DC slow down her whirlwind of work and meetings, though, and make more time to play.

She wonders if Hank's behavior might improve if she lives more moment to moment. That's what worrying about what might be does. It robs you of what is.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.