Recapturing A Childhood Love

Here’s what I know:

I love art, color and creativity.

Somewhere along the childhood path something happened and that passion was lost. The love affair ended. The romance died.

I guess over time I got used to “living without it”. I suppose I told myself I didn’t need it. Accepted it and moved on. Until one day….

BOOM…a memory.

I felt a tiny spark of rekindled passion and then a “sweep me off my feet” kind of love. That was 3 years ago. Today, our love affair lives on and we continue to rediscover each other every day.

There are the moments, as we rekindle the old relationship, when memories of the “old times” surface and beg to be integrated with the new. Recently I had one of those “old times” resurface and “hang around”. It seemed to beg me to take action, and re-experience its wonder from a new, grown up place.

A little girl and a box…

I don’t know what made me think of it, but the memory that appeared was that of a favorite childhood book. I couldn’t remember the title so I Googled words like “girl” “box” “creativity”. That’s what I remembered. As a little girl I read a book, a lot, that had a cardboard box that became exciting new things through a fun little girl’s imagination.

A cardboard box.

A precociously creative little girl who was one of my childhood heroes.

Christina Katerina & The Box

That’s IT! Christina Katerina And The Box. I found it. And last week, I ordered it!

Yesterday I read it on the stoop with the same magical, child-like fascination I did way back in Routh Roach Elementary School. It didn’t look quite like I remembered it, but it felt EXACTLY the same!

Christina Katerina, in all her Creative Divaness, is still my hero. Christina Katerina who turns a simple cardboard box into magical fantasy worlds. Launching her creative ideas into the world…

Right in the front yard.

Under the apple tree.

For all to see.

Christina Katerina turned box-related disasters into opportunities to stretch her imagination and create fantasy worlds anew. She was the ultimate problem-solver and creativity queen.

She’s inspired me anew to get out in the yard. Find my apple tree. Bring my “box”. Go with my gut. Use MY imagination. Create my vision in the world. Ignore those who try to “throw away the box” (some days that might even mean ignoring myself!). Embrace MY Creative Divaness and get on with the love affair that almost got away. We don’t always get a second chance at love, after all.