Before there was my current main character, there was a sort of crude prototype named Prince Charlie. But Prince Charlie didn’t arrive alone. He brought a friend.
It started with a rather obscure piece of classical music called “Scottish Rhapsody – Prince Charlie” by Sir John Blackwood McEwen. I discovered this song in my teens and apparently found it very catchy. I daydreamed to it for a couple of years or so.
The Prince Charlie of my imagination was a boy who lived in a great big castle next to an enchanted forest. In the forest lived a nymph named Daisy. She wore a white dress and always had daisies in her hair. She was Prince Charlie’s best friend, his only friend really. Charlie was always sneaking out of the castle to join her in the forest. I remember she had a magical swing they played on sometimes. Other times they played in the river, or went searching for fairies. Occasionally Charlie brought Daisy into the castle. When she did, the two of them had to be sneaky to keep the king and queen from discovering her.
At some point a curse was somehow cast on Prince Charlie so that at certain times he would turn into a dragon. He was still person-sized though, small enough to fit in his closet. In fact, he would sometimes hide in his closet when he was in his dragon form to avoid being found.
That’s pretty much all I remember about Prince Charlie. More than a decade later, I learned about C.G. Jung’s concept of anima and I had to admit the eerie resemblance to Daisy. I won’t attempt to define the soul (yet). For now, think of Daisy as a metaphor for imagination.
As a teenager, I felt I had to hide myself in so many ways. I covered my chubby body in baggy clothes, hid the fact that I had crushes on girls, and meditated with the door locked because I didn’t think my parents would approve. I felt ugly, weird, and unlovable.
Those times when I was with Daisy, though, I felt such love. My heart soared. I always looked forward to my quiet time with her. (Or not so quiet, since I would mutter and pace if I could get away with it.) There was nothing Charlie could say to her, no monster he could become, that would cause her to abandon him. She could be flighty but she always came back, leading him out of the castle’s oppressive stone structures and back into the forest, to good-natured whimsy and fun.
This is my love story. It’s not about two people who fall into love. It’s about somebody who hates themselves falling into the arms of imagination.
Again and again, I have fantasies about a cursed young man and an undeterred companion. Charlie became John who has since acquired many curses and befriended many “Daisies”—female companions who could be seen as different representations of imagination. Some of them are young, some old, some flirty, some shy, some strong-willed, some impressionable. My protagonist is always trying to relate to the latest model. Usually he is grappling with strong feelings for her while also managing his many secrets.
Even though Charlie, Daisy, and all their subsequent reincarnations are oddly synchronous with Jung’s ideas, I am skeptical of generalizations about a universal image for soul. You, for example, probably aren’t haunted by images of a whimsical woman pointing the way to love. Nevertheless, maybe you have felt a vague sense of two-ness in your life. Perhaps it is little more than the feeling of one force in your life that leads the way, and another, clumsier force that tries to follow.