There are moments in childhood that seem insignificant at the time—a casual conversation, a shared secret, an afternoon spent in imagination—yet they become the foundation stones upon which an entire worldview is constructed. I had two such moments at the age of five, both involving otherworldly visions that would shape the peculiar architecture of my mind for decades to come.
The Art of Seeing What Isn't There
The first lesson in alternate reality came courtesy of my great-aunt Nanny, a woman who practiced the ancient art of believing in things that sensible people dismissed as nonsense. She lived in that enchanted corner of Tennessee that I've come to call Sleepy Hollow, where the very air seemed thick with possibility and the shadows held secrets that daylight couldn't fully uncover."Come here, child," she said as we sat on her porch steps during one of those drowsy summer evenings when time moved like honey. "Let me teach you to see the faeries."
You might think this was simply the fanciful whim of an elderly woman indulging a child’s imagination. But, Aunt Nanny gave fairy-spotting the same meticulous attention to detail that members of the Audubon Society applied to bird-watching. She had techniques, you see—protocols and an entire curriculum dedicated to the observation of the supernatural.
"You must look with the corners of your eyes," she instructed, demonstrating by gazing sideways into the gathering dusk. "Never look directly at them, or they'll vanish quicker than your father's good humor when the tax man comes calling."
She taught me to identify the telltale signs: the shimmer of light quite distinct from the bright flash of fireflies, the movement that occurred just beyond the edge of vision, the sudden stillness that fell over the garden when the little folk were about. Within an hour, I began to see faeries everywhere—flitting among the honeysuckle, hiding behind the morning glory vines, dancing to music only they could hear.
A Harbor in Another World
The second pivotal moment came later that same year, though whether it was a dream, a vision, or something else entirely, I'll never know. I saw myself surrounded by playmates on a veranda overlooking a busy harbor. The architecture was neither familiar nor foreign—it existed in that strange territory of the almost-remembered, like a word on the tip of your tongue that refuses to materialize.
Below us, a sailing ship entered the harbor with the graceful precision of a well-rehearsed ballet. The painted sails lowered, and rows of oars appeared to guide the vessel to the loading docks. I watched with the intense focus of a child witnessing genuine magic, which, in retrospect, I suppose I was.
The vision was so vivid, so richly detailed, that it felt less like imagination and more like memory. I could smell the salt air, feel the warm breeze on my face, hear the gentle lapping of waves against the harbor walls. Most remarkably, I felt at home there, not as a visitor to some fantastical realm, but as someone who belonged.
It would be years before I would connect this experience to a past life in Atlantis, but even then, I knew I had glimpsed something significant. Something that would call to me again and again throughout my life, like a melody from a half-remembered dream.
The Architecture of Wonder
These two experiences taught me that reality was far more flexible than most people imagined, that the boundaries between the possible and impossible were more like suggestions than actual barriers.
In the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, we regarded visions and music in the air as normal. The area was steeped in local legends and twilight superstitions. I learned to navigate the everyday world of chores and schoolwork, along with tales of headless horsemen and memories of people and places that could not be.
This dual citizenship in the ordinary and extraordinary became essential when, decades later, my limbic system generated its own characters. Princess Amy, an almond-eyed critic running my mind like a questionable theatrical director, feels as real to me as Aunt Nanny's faeries once did.
The Inheritance
What I inherited from those childhood moments was more than an active imagination; it shaped a worldview that embraces the impossible. Embracing the extraordinary has helped me navigate what others may see as a disordered mind with grace.
Even my relationship with Ms. Wonder, that paragon of stability who guides me through life's practical challenges, feels touched by the same magic that first revealed itself on that Tennessee porch. She appears in my life with the same mysterious timing that faeries once showed—exactly when needed, bearing exactly the wisdom required.
The Circular Journey
The dreamy quality of Sleepy Hollow has stayed with me, whether I'm at Circular Journey Cafe discussing coffee foam art with Princess Amy or playing ukulele under a magnolia while practicing qigong, I always carry that childhood sense of wonder.
In the end, the greatest gift Aunt Nanny gave me was the understanding that seeing is itself a creative act. The world is a collaborative canvas where consciousness and reality dance together. And in that dance, magic is inevitable, as long as we remember how to look with the corners of our eyes.
