Imaginative Thinking

I am having something of a Nancy Carroll moment:a scandalously long moment, if you must know.There is no need to Google the conversion rate:it works out to approximately three weeks.I have been doing a little too much inward living lately,which makes me seem perhaps a bit backward:but we all go through phases,rotations.This pull between inner and outer,which to me is as ancient-seeming as the sun or the earth beneath our feet, is mine.It is to be shackled then set free, in an endless loop that has covered all of my days and will continue to do so until the frost sets in and hardens.It is for this reason that I am a writer,and am stage-trained:those two poles reflect the opposite aspects of my most primal nature,and both require the ability to sink into the depths of imagination.
There are those who will tell you that I think too much,dream too much,know too much:as if any of those ends,even after a thousand years of living,could ever be reached.Others consider the imagination to be the sole province of children and imbeciles, and thus far from a right pursuit for adults.They are obviously not artists.I am proud of the way I am. I have no qualms in tossing my imaginative life into the world for all to see:after all, to one extent or another, I do so with every piece that I write.Anyone even distantly familiar with my writing voice realizes that,while I dive to the depths, I am not a dry writer. I do not stack my words dispassionately one after the other,like erect soldiers arow,arow,arow.
My imaginative faculties are like rapids:formidable and ever-moving.While I love being a modern woman, I have always felt an exhilarating affinity with the 1920's.This love affair has easily been aided by books and movies, the 2 lovely-dirty culprits that can be blamed for my sense of connectedness with various historical eras (19th-century Russia, Elizabethan England,Ancient Britain,etc.).The greatest appeal of that decade is in what it meant to be a woman then,in the million little ways that the world opened up for us.There was a delicious clarity to that freedom that has since almost entirely vanished from society.
I am entirely besotted with Silent Cinema, and have been since I saw my first frame.As a history and culture buff, I take an almost Anthropological interest in the first 20 years of the American film industry ( I am not counting the earliest,disjointed years when the flickers were a nascent novelty,neither business nor art form).I think that it should be viewed from the combination of one part Margaret Mead, one part Anita Loos.
As a teenager, I checked out and devoured score upon score of early-20th Century related books,about: Hollywood and fashion and pop culture and art and literature and politics.They were biographies and autobiographies,criticisms and studies,fiction and non-fiction,scathing and naive.They were an apt schooling for one of my temperament and natural bent.
I first came upon the luscious fiery-locked Nancy Carroll in a nameless,forgotten book.I'm sure that the initial appeal was that we shared the same rare hair-colour.I enjoyed reading about her,and enjoyed her films even more.Yet others soon became my favourites. I moved on rather swiftly, as there was so much yet to uncover and explore.I have been reminded of her periodically through the years:each rediscovery has been refreshing,and brief.She was certainly a nonpareil.Her charismatic screen presence was extraordinary.She photographed remarkably well,even though her round face was initially deemed a hindrance to stardom.She was incandescent and peppy but without the hedonistic quality of Clara Bow or the sophisticated yet raw sexuality of Louise Brooks.She could act as well as sing.She received an Academy Award nomination and was stunningly popular for a time.As with so many others with stratospheric attractions,her fame has not lasted:it did not even last the length of her lifetime.I recently came upon a photo of her,somewhere in the vastness of the Internet.Hooked again,just like that.
She is an easy one to build daydreams and stories around.By that, I do not mean that I sit around concocting fictional escapades around Nancy Carroll--although that sounds kind of fun,doesn't it? ( I will own up to looking her way for some beauty tips.) Perhaps something in the vein of those writers who turn historical figures (Jane Austen, Good Queen Bess) into wacky and perceptive sleuths?It is the Nancy Carroll type that is so mesmerizing.Like any good flapper,she was complex,truly dimensional--and ridiculously stylish.The legendary life force of those 1920's women lends itself to fiction in spectacular fashion.They are also model muses for any modern woman looking to get the most from this life.It is largely due to the latter that I find them insanely relatable.Even the most mediocre Flapper has an immediacy of personality almost unheard of with women of even considerably newer vintage.
I have had a 1920's novel floating around in my head for these 3 years past.I woke from a dream,and the bones and flesh of it were before my eyes,palpable and flowing with blood.It is 2nd in the queue of my unborn works of long fiction,but its time of quickening is nearly upon me.Although many of her details need to be imagined,created,shaded,my heroine came to me as tangible as life.She is a Flapper,of course, and as such a woman for the ages.The spirit of women such as Nancy Carroll, as filtered through my imagination and preferences, is to be found in her.
As the race of my days has been temporarily slowed down to accommodate my inner dictation,as mysterious as it is necessary,I have returned again and again to subjects that make me happy,give me no pause,help my imagination soar.It is a process of regeneration and renewal.This time around, I have been lucky to have Nancy Carroll in the mix,to remind me of my own ineffable zest,and the thousand little links between imagination,inspiration and creativity.