A box, January 4 Daily Reflection

The box

A box, a cardboard box about 4 feet tall maybe 2.5 feet wide, it’s just a box right?

Oh, no it is so much more than a just a box to my children with their creative little brains. It is a spaceship, a fort, a campsite and a clubhouse. It is a space to hide in during hide and seek. It is a place to crawl into when no one is looking and be alone for a moment. It is a place to store all the pillows from the couch and the blankets to stack them so high that you can sit on the top of the box. My children don’t see a cardboard box at all they see so much more.

As adults what do we see? Do we see a box that needs to be broken down and put into the recycle bin? Do we see a box that needs to go out with the garbage because it is in the way? Do we see a new storage place for wrapping paper and boxes left over from Christmas morning? Why do we see so practically and logically when we grow up? Why did we stop climbing inside the box and having time alone to read a book? Why did we stop cutting the windows out of the sides and making it into a clubhouse? Why do those thoughts no longer enter our thought process? We are grown up and we are conditioned to believe we should no longer play with boxes but instead with boats, trains and airplanes. But whatever happened to the simplicity of using our imagination when looking at that box, that cardboard box?

Maybe today we should think outside of the “box” and play for a moment in our imagination. Maybe just for a few minutes in our hectic, busy lives as the “adult” we should allow ourselves a little recess and let our creative mind take hold. Maybe such time will free us from the monotony of everyday life. Just maybe that box is more than simply a box it is an avenue for creativity and freedom of our minds once more.

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