The Story of my Imaginary Themepark

But there was something about those hours upon hours upon hours of pure wondering that had vanished from my life…

“How are you going to make the world a better place?” My father would ask me, again and again.  “I’m just going to go around and make people’s days better?” I would answer.

“That’s not a job,” my brother would sneer.

So I thought. And I continued to think. Think and think and think. And it’s surprised me how much a person could think. And where those thoughts could go… and how thoughts could change my vision, that I could fall in and out of love with life whenever I wanted to. Sometimes.

And so, how simple was that? I would dedicate my life helping the children discover the endlessness of their own mind. Negotiate with monsters. Forget-me-not the nothingness. Easy peasy.

I was living out of a suitcase across a few cities with a bouquet of journal entries, tied by the twine of half-sung songs, dripping in and out of ripped up paintings, when I a glimpse of what I was doing.

And I would continue to wonder.

My first song became nine. The songs needed a story, so that the messages would make equal sense as nonsense within a context. The story became five. Then the stories needed a home. The stories grew extra eyes and ears and became this tentacled thing. By the time I was half way through explaining the everythingness of it all to child, she asked me ~

“Why don’t you have your own school?”

“Because you don’t like school … do you?”

“I like rollercoasters.”

“Yes, that makes perfect sense.”

I was rejected by every publisher. I was sacked from almost every job. I broke my own heart several times.

I ran away from my homes, writing on rooftops, recording songs in hostel cupboards and war vet hotels with shared bathrooms at the end of dimly lit yellow hallways. I can hear the shuffling of old feet scuffing the carpet in the distance of my songs.

And I kept wondering.

By the time my life fell apart completely I had collaborated with over 70 friends to almost finish my stories and I was pregnant.

I kept wondering and wondering and wondering.

I met two intriguing new friends, Francis Lim and Yongho Moon, and then two more brainiacs, Jeremy Noble and Josey DeRossi. And as a family, we started to pull all the pieces together, and watched, as from the charred landscape emerged nine illustrated books with twinkling soundtracks ~ The Past Life Library & The Young Philosophers Series. They were so beautiful. But they looked so lonely on Amazon. No caterpillars.

I had a child, I lost my grip, I was demolished, I found strange faith, I became who I once was and fell in love with everyone all over again. We taught the books in schools. We wondered with the students. Two more children graced my life. And so I began to the wonder with them…

I had finally found a home, but what was it about rollercoasters? Rollercoasters, rollercoasters, rollercoasters… My attention being gobbled up every moment, TV, iPhone, kids, Ted talk, love, podcast… so meditate – I was told. And I did. But the rollercoaster down the street from me, that’s where I’d go to think. 

And although I would wonder sometimes with my kids haphazardly as ideas and topics came and went like butterflies, there was something about those hours upon hours upon hours of wild never-ending wondering that had vanished from my life.

My wondering had needed a home as much as I had.

And so I built one.

For me, for my kids, for you.

Welcome to EVERYTHING–WORLD.