Sticks and Stones

Sometimes, when the boys are busy with their work, or when we are sitting around the table for an afternoon of family art, I sit and play with paint, pens and ink and dream up all manner of doodles in my daydreams.

I have begun to cocoon myself with stones, sticks, journals - in fact, anything that I can paint on, and carve a little work niche for myself in this busy home of ours.

It is important, I think, that we as adults allow ourselves the time to create - to keep that spark of creativity alive within us. It is all too easy to give in to chores and 'important' things and to lose ourselves in the process - to erase who we are and confuse it with what we do.

But to create these pockets of calm, these oasise of crafting and creating is no less important than the other work we undertake each day. If fact, it may be more so - for through our example our children soon follow. Once they see me sit in quiet concentration it isn't long before they too sit and concentrate and make. Maybe not for long, but at least they know that this work of ours, whatever it is, that it is important.