I am not sure at what age the shift from finding complete satisfaction in entertaining yourself through a world of pretend and magic with a preference for off the cusp scheduling changes to a solid need for accomplishment and events and planning.  It seems somewhere in between twenty and twenty-five years of age I can see the spiraling path of my own demise.  I think it begins later than most would like to admit, for I can remember with a vivid mind frolicking the back yard of the farm I worked on in my last years as a teen finding a ditch that I spent hours running up and down like a half-pipe and occasionally making up random stories to illustrate my actions.  So, giving myself the benefit of the doubt, and stretching the land of make-believe as long as I can, it has been approximately four years since I have visited this state of mind.

Until yesterday…

My boys were occupied with one thing or another in thier own little minds, one firmly seated in the sand box buried neck-deep in our stash of construction toys, the other wandering the woods, “Baxter” in tote confidently teaching him the ways of the world.

So, I was left to my own business which happened to be building this fortress you see in the first picture.  Well, it may not look like much, but somehow by the grace of all things good, it swept me off my feet.  There was work to be done, so I did it, all the while a tiny story line scrolling through my mind like a set of musical notes.  It was wonderous.

Spending time with children, and not just carting them from one activity to the next, or just cleaning up after them, or attempting to engage them, but really spending time with them; Seeing their energy  come sparking off their little foreheads and then clinging to your own, feeling their amazement with the world around them- everything from a small twig to the wind to a fern is new and perfect and crazy awesome, this THIS is contagious.  If you can ignore the never ending play list of laundry and dishes and meals and errands and bills, it will begin to happen to you too.

“Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea and drink the wild air”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson