When I was a very young boy my imagination on a wintry or rainy day could turn my bed into a dugout canoe and I would paddle that dugout down the Amazon River of my mind. What adventures I had—all imagined—but those adventures of the mind were as exciting as anything I’ve ever experienced. Perhaps this is why whenever I find a canoe available, I want to get in it and paddle down some unknown “Amazon,” whether it be a lake, a pond, a stream, a river, or even the Audubon Scarborough marshland here in Maine.
The Audubon Scarborough Marsh is a saltwater marsh and when high tide occurs in the ocean (three miles away) the water rises in the winding channels of the marsh making it possible to kayak or canoe in those channels. When the tide goes out again, the channels are no longer navigable and become nothing but mud.
When the tide came in yesterday and those meandering muddy channels filled with water, I was ready and waiting with our rented canoe. What an adventure—to paddle through those channels bordered by reeds and marsh grass—winding this way and that way—hidden from view. It was just like being on the Amazon I once created with my boyhood imagination. The “Amazon” of my childhood mind must miss me—just as Puff the Magic Dragon misses little Jackie Paper in the land called Honali.
Albert Einstein had a lot to say about the imagination. He said, “…Imagination is more than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world….Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” I agree with the great scientist for through my imagination, I have found the Amazon in Maine!
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