“Clop: What is he imagining?”
My four-year-old granddaughter handed me a card she had found in the debris of my house. The card depicted a man on a roof, holding a shovel; the man was looking at clods of reindeer excrement. In the original card, which I had designed for Christmas delivery, the “thought bubble” had the words, “It should say ‘Up on the rooftop, dump, dump, dump!’”
Speech balloons or speech bubbles evolved from “speech scrolls” that illustrated artworks from Central American cultures. The scrolls did not have text, but graphic icons intended to communicate ideas. Those scrolls were eventually modified into balloons that comic book artists and illustrators used to indicate what each character was saying. The Indianapolis journalist, cartoonist and humorist Kin Hubbard eschewed the use of the balloon; his character, “Abe Martin,” had his comments about life and society sketched across the foreground. I’m not sure when the balloons became bubbles, or how the bubbles became an indicator of the character’s thoughts rather than words, but when I made the card Myah brought to me, I used the bubble to illustrate what the figure was thinking. I’m not sure how my granddaughter concluded that the man was “imagining” anything. I’m also unsure how she came to understand the concept of imagining.
Myah likes to watch videos on my iPad, and when she visits, that is often her first request. I will set her a bargain: We will read three books first, and then she can get on the YouTube Kids website. She likes to watch a show that has young people — mostly girls — acting out scenarios with little dolls. I can see the fingers and hands of the people handling the dolls; many of the episodes she watches are narrated by girls who sound as if they are from New Zealand. The shows are creative and imaginative, and Myah is kept enthralled by the plays. She translates what she sees on the screen to what she does with me. We play the games she likes, most of which involve her version of “hide and seek.” She will specify and identify her hiding place, and I will walk around my apartment, pretending to seek out the hidden one. Sometimes, she will stuff her shirt with small dolls and pretend that they are a litter of kittens. I must find all of them. I will walk around the apartment, loudly calling out, “Where is Myah? I can’t find her.” I now wonder what she is thinking as she huddles on the floor of the empty bathtub, hidden behind the shower curtain. What is she imagining?
After astounding me with the question of imagination, Myah took the card from me, found a crayon in the art pile I’ve constructed for her and sat down to draw.
“I know what he’s imagining,” she said as she modified the card. She held it up for me: “Clop, and Baby Myah.”
cjon3acd@att.net