Behind The Scenes

On some days I focus and try to put myself behind the eyes of five year old Kenzie. I try to see the world from her perspective, but it's oftentimes so creative the best I can do is go along for the ride.

Today we found a little playground behind an apartment building within walking distance from her house. It had five things: two rock back and forth structures, two blue metal climbing bars and an old tire nailed up to a wooden post.

The wooden post looked as if it was rotting, so the tire was off limits. We rocked on the wooden horse and motorcycle, then switched places and rocked some more. We climbed on the blue bars, me on the taller one and Kenz on the shorter one. Then I was done. "Let's go, Kenz, there's not much to do here."

But that is not what she was seeing.

"No, let's not leave, I have a game, Nana."

She began directing a lively and interesting version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

"You are Jack, Nana, and I'm the mother."

"Take the cow (use the horse, Nana) and take it to the man and tell him to give you all his quarters."

She became the man and handed me invisible seeds.

"Put your hands behind your back. Nana, and take them home to the mother." (This is how it must have been pictured in a book)

"Now throw them out the window, and get in your bed,Jack. The horse is your bed and I am the mother so I sleep on the bike, but they're really beds, that rock," she laughed.

(ten seconds later)

"In the morning Jack and his mother got up and looked at the tall beanstalk. Climb it, you are Jack," she directed.

I did as I was told and climbed to the top of the tall blue metal thing. I could see over the wall into a dark yard next door that was so full of trees and bushes I felt as if I had reached the lush forbidden forest of the Giant in the sky.

"Now come down Nana, I mean Jack, and I am the Giant and I chase you."

I descended from the stalk scared to death of the deep Fe Fi Fo Fums I was hearing...so I ran as fast as I could around the small playground until the Giant tagged me.

"Run back to the stalk, quick" Kenz said, feeling a little sorry for me cause I had to be caught by the mean Giant. Then as soon as my feet took a couple steps up the ladder, she yelled, "No Nana, you don't go up there because... Now I am Jack... you are the mother and you tell me to go and sell the cow, because we are hungy".....

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Quotations on Creativity

The world of reality has limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

The creative thinker is flexible and adaptable and prepared to rearrange his thinking.

Cropley, A. J.

Imagination is intelligence having fun.

Anonymous

The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Proust, Marcel