Sticks & Stones (& a few Paper Bags)

Several years ago, on an extended family trip to Turkey, we found ourselves with nothing to do. Not ‘very little to do’, or even ‘not much to do’, But really and truly nothing to do. No Thing was calling on our time. No one was expecting anything from us. Nothing.

At first, it felt weird. Disconcertingly weird. And then slowly, slowly we eased into the emptiness. Slowly, we slipped out of gear and into neutral.

Slowly, we started to see things, to notice things. Little things, like sticks. And stones. “Hmm, that’s kind of interesting.”

The more we looked around, the more the little things became beautiful things. Quite fascinating things. So we started playing with them, organizing them, playing with them, tying them together, making new things like swords and bulls and bows and arrows.

Emboldened by our early success at pouring energy into nothingness and ending up with something, we dug a little deeper. Somewhere in the house someone found some paper bags, from a shop where we’d purchased some Turkish towels.

“Hmm, those are kind of interesting.”

So we started cutting and folding and glueing and taping. What we ended up with couldn’t have felt more special. A spectacular moment and a ferociously vivid memory.

The lesson is this: next time you can drive a little wedge of nothingness into your life, look around and find something you can use to make anything. The simple pleasure of creating something with your hands is everything.