Family Memories and the Perfect Blue Rollie
A simple prompt in the Creative Mentorship Circle this past week prompted a series of delightful memories for me. The prompt involved choosing an object in your immediate environment and using it to “speak” to you about a dilemma you’d been pondering.
As I looked around the room my eyes settled on a bright blue sphere sitting on a small stand that I’ve had in my studio for years. In fact, that blue sphere occupied several office spaces throughout my career. I bought it at a gem show years ago, in part, because it reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of Fraggle Rock called “The Perfect Blue Rollie”. It’s always felt magical and special to me.
In case you’ve never seen it, Fraggle Rock was a children’s musical fantasy series created by Jim Henson in the mid-1980s. The show featured interconnected muppet societies of Fraggles, Gorgs, and Doozers and often included lessons about the environment and cultural constructs amid an underground fantasy world filled with color, fun muppet characters, and lots of singing. The best part of the show for me was when one of the Fraggle characters named “Traveling Matt” would travel to “outer space” to study the “Silly Creatures” (humans). His observations of human behavior were wildly inaccurate and hilarious.
My sisters and I all loved Fraggle Rock. I can still remember my youngest sister Sara dancing along to the opening credits and giggling when the character Gobo ran through the tunnel with his pink hair flying. In fact, we all loved the show so much that one of our cats was named after the character Mokey on the show.
In the “The Perfect Blue Rollie” episode, the Fraggles find a stockpile of small pebbles smoothed out by underground waterfalls. They dub these pebbles “rollies” because they are smooth, round and easy to roll. However, the rarest of these pebbles is the perfect blue rollie. Legend has it that you can live your whole life and never see one. The legend also says that the perfect blue rollie is the best gift you can ever give. Naturally, when the Fraggles come upon a perfect blue rollie, conflict ensues over what should be done with it after its discovery. I won’t spoil the ending for you in case you’d like to watch the episode, especially if you’ve seen the show and are feeling nostalgic.
Simply picking up my own perfect blue rollie in my studio reminded me of the magic of Fraggle Rock and of the joy that my family and I got from watching it. It also inspired me to continue creating magical creatures and scenes of my own.
I think what I’m taking from this experience is that there are many magical and joyful moments in my past. But like many people, I tend to remember negative experiences more strongly in some ways. Yet, there is a reason that that blue sphere has had an honored place in all of my offices throughout the years.
I think objects can carry the magic of experiences inside them and keep them with us always. What do you think?Are there any objects you keep for the pure joy of remembering a wonderful past experience?