Day 146

It was a posh resort. And in the lobby was a beautiful table arrangement. Few marbles, shells and flowers in a glass jar. Simple and eye-catching. I am sure the designer or decorator must've charged the owners a small packet for that arrangement.

I sat there looking at it for a long time. Bathed in the evening rays of the sun it was mesmerizing. It brought back memories of yore. When my mother taught me to make such beautiful things out of simple things. Things that you didn't have to spend a lot of money on.

"Creativity does not come out of daddy's purse. It comes out of your head," she used to say. "Moreover daddy's purse is awfully small, it cannot hold much creativity in there. Whereas your head, that's a different matter altogether. There is a lot of storage space for a lots of ideas. And you already have a lot of ideas stored in there. All you have to do is pull it out," she would say.

How? I would ask angrily. "I cannot see anything inside my head."
"But I can," she'd smile. "And there are unimaginably beautiful things in there....lots."
"Then you take it out for me," I'd cry. I was just a child.
"No I can't. Only you can do that."
Again I would scream at the top of my voice. "But I cannot see it."
And I can still hear her voice. "I will teach you how to pull it out of your head. Close your eyes."
"But if I close my eyes, I cannot even see you." Yeah, i was a stubborn and sometimes stupid child.
"When you close your eyes. The eyes in your mind will open. And then you can see with your mind's eye. Clearly. It will lead you to all those beautiful ideas sitting inside your head. You can pull out the ones you want and work on it," she had said.

The first time she taught me to see with my mind's eye was when we were sitting on the Marina beach a place my parents took me to occasionally. And I had wanted them to buy me more than one shell-dolls.

That's when my mother pointed to the shells on the beach, numerous shells and said, "you can make a beautiful doll, yourself. Just close your eyes and open your mind's eye and you will see what you want to do and how to do it."

I still do practice pulling out ideas from my head by closing my eyes. It works always.