Many children experience playing in a sandbox. I enjoyed my earliest when I was a toddler in Glen Cove, Long Island. Here’s a photo of me and my brother with matching plaid playsuits. He was working on a clay pot and was beside a washed-out sandbox on our street. My mother wanted us dressed in style for every activity. On this day, I knelt across from him, head-to-head, as his skillful hands made magic. I don’t remember ever thinking we were as different as a girl and a boy. In that playsuit, I thought the message was we were just equals, no different. Except that I would develop a passion for words, singing and acting, and my brother would draw, snap jokes and lift weights.
It wasn’t more than a few years after the sandbox was plowed over. My brother developed his own friends. The matching playsuits were put away, and I was not appreciated as his sidekick anymore. I realize that I had a period of sadness that small children find hard to express or extinguish. We were way out on Long Island and I was unable to go to a school and meet new people. My mother kept buying me pretty dresses. All I thought about was the wind sweeping out from under my matching plaid hat, my knees dug in grass or sand, and my brother creating art (and me helping). My missing sandbox kicked off a review of life experiences bearing instructions and lessons that have formed my beliefs, self-affirmations and service to the world.
The sandbox has been replaced by fitness classes, entertainment events, trails, houses, work, other friends, and marriages. Everything. But the main lesson from the sandbox is that you must remain hungry for your knees in the sand, the wind in your hair and something that inspires you enough to keep you thriving. I think every blog post, story, poem, book, song, creation bears the stamp of a missing sandbox, attempting to recreate something within or without borders, reclaiming our sense of play and purpose. And so here are the lessons I keep uncovering day by day, and thanks for stopping by.
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