Open a new box of Crayolas.
Inhale deeply.
(Aahhhh, new crayon box, my favorite first grade scent.)
Choose your favorite color.
Sky blue, no, carnation, no, burnt orange – oh, go ahead and use all the colors.
Write a story in crayon.
Feel what children feel.
No.
Experience what children don’t feel –
fear,
embarrassment,
apology.
use kindirgoten speling leave out punctuation draw a picture
Give yourself permission to create – imperfectly, authentically.
Proudly display your story on the refrigerator, adhered with masking tape or a Tweetie Birdmagnet. Mail your creation to your mother, folded in a bulky square and stuffed crookedly in an old fashioned envelop – aaah the taste of sealing an envelop. Remember when an upside down stamp on a letter meant I Love You.
Experience Creation.
Go to the neighbor’s monkey bars and do a trick.
“Look at me, look at me”.
Children are not smaller versions of adults; they are a different species entirely (unless poisoned by criticism or too much correction).
They are self-forgiving, creatively expressive, and free with imaginative experimentation.
Write like a child.