From the Present:

Anyone can do it. All you need is a bucket of water and some dirt. You can be small, but your imagination must be large. And you must be small to have such a large imagination. Your imagination must have wings capable of carrying you to lands far away from the that boring lands of reality. It must be able to carry you past adult sensibilities that would consider the lake you built merely a puddle. For that is just a point of view. To an ant, to a flea, to a nine-year-old boy; it is not a puddle, but a lake.

So stretch the wings of your imagination and make a river that flows into a lake. Ants, earthworms and spiders will behold a lake where before there was only dirt. They will stop by for a drink. The Queen Ant will surely build a lake colony on it’s shores for her to enjoy on the weekend. Cricket couples will since love songs to each other as they look across it’s shore on romantic, streetlight lit nights. Stand back and admire your creation before you grow up. For one day such magnificent lakes will become nothing more than puddles to be avoided.

From the Past:

November 15th, 1994 – Age 9

Dear diary,

Today is Tuesday. I got up and went to school. Oh and at school we are working on a lake. It started out as a river, but it didn’t flow all the way though, so we turned it into a lake. And we went to family prary night. After it we went to Aaron’s (my older brother) play. Aaron fooled around and every one’s yelling as usual.

From the Present:

“Everyone’s yelling as usual.”

In hindsight, it’s not that everyone was “usually” yelling when I grew up. We were mostly a happy family, but like any groups of people inhabiting the same space, we crashed into each other and conflicts erupted, voices were raised. When little kids listen to their parents argue and yell, these are the longest moments of their life. One second of conflict, seems like an unbearable eternity.

In my family though things were thankfully always worked out and rarely did people go to bed angry.  Conflicts will always enter a house, but make them leave that same day. Never let a conflict stay the night, no matter how insistent he is. Even if he begs for a place on the couch for just one night, if you allow him to stay, he’ll make a habit of it. A conflict is not a healthy house guest.

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