Phoenix Brain

I'm always trying to find the words that explain how my daughter's brain works. Then, while watching an interview of Lin Manuel Miranda by Emma Watson (one of my daughter's earliest idols and one if her most recent), it came to me (not sure why, except that I have a sneaking suspicion their brains work much like my daughter's).

It's like her brain is a Phoenix. Meaning each of her obsessions starts as a spark. Something that catches her attention - medieval torture, quantum physics, rock formations, Japanese writing, musical theater, whatever, and it begins to grow as she sucks every ounce of oxygen from her surrounding vicinity to fan the flames of her latest passion.  

Once those flames catch, her need to know more grows and grows, like an uncontained forest fire consuming every ounce of fuel in its path, until it grows to almost mythical proportions. Emerging as this beautiful, fiery, wing'ed creature that glows so brightly you can barely look at it directly, until her brain is satiated, the oxygen is fully consumed, and the flames die back down. 

Some obsessions are like a flashover. There one minute, all consuming, but gone the next. Others smolder for weeks, months, or years. Often multiple Phoenixes are sprouting from the ashes simultaneously. Other times, just one GIANT Phoenix so large it's impossible to see from one wing tip to the other. 

What can never predicted or forced is which sparks will become Phoenix. 

What is true is the Phoenixes are both beautiful and frightening. Creative and deadly. Awe inspiring and apocalyptic. 

And, still, this description seems woefully inadequate. 

I'll keep trying.