Imagination Play

As a kid, I loved imagination play when no one was looking. My favorite part of my room was where we set up house corner. I didn’t always have that room, but when I did, that was my favorite part. All the fake kitchen stuff was set up in a way that separated house corner from the rest of my room. My room was always a mess clothes, shoes, toys, everywhere but sometimes I’d climb over my mess and clean up my house corner to play in.

As a mom, I learned that we shouldn’t interrupt our children’s imagination play. It tears them from their world where all the magic happens. The same goes for my writing time. When I get interrupted, I’m torn from my world of imagination and creation. An entire plan can be lost in an instant. The best way I can describe it, is like a sea anemone going back into hidinh. (Thankfully, I’ve learned to write when the house settles down so I’m rarely interrupted at night.)

I think it’s silly how closely related the creative process is to being a child. Yes, we read bigger books and do research to figure how to portray what’s important to us. We work on our craft and on ourselves. We are putting in so much effort but is it just to get to the same place we were as children in house corner. Picasso once said,

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

I wonder what he meant by that?