As I drove home from the Carpenter Art Garden today, I noticed paint under my fingernails. After a day spent with kids painting pictures of trees, making paper snowflakes and chatting about life the way only a kid can see it, I wasn’t surprised. The Carpenter Art Garden is a magical space – a purple house with craft supplies from floor to ceiling, an outdoor space to play and a community garden for kids to connect with the earth. I can understand why kids line up outside the door every Tuesday after school to get a chance to come inside.

20150224_164837Carpenter Art Garden

I always enjoy spending time with children – listening to them laugh, watching their creativity and talking to them about their lives. I love being surrounded by the barely controlled chaos that always happens with kids.

20150224_160640Lovely artwork

I got to spend some quality time with a special little girl today. I was drawn to her beautiful smile with one newly missing tooth and the pink tree she was painting. We talked about how both our birthdays are in October, how she just turned seven and the fact that she wants to be a singer when she grows up. She said her favorite song is a Hello Kitty song she made up. I commented that it was incredible that she had written a song and that was the first time she told me “You just have to let your imagination run wild.” The second time came when she told me that she had never seen a pink tree, but she wanted to paint one. And that is why I love talking to kids – they remind me of the important things in life.

20150224_154306Aaliyah, a little girl with a big imagination

Before I left, I helped another girl make her first paper snowflake and dodged the play attacks of a stuffed dog. I will always be in awe of places like the Carpenter Art Garden that inspire such creativity in kids, and by the passion of the people who run them.

So when I saw that little bit of paint under my fingernails on my way home, I smiled and knew that little bit of paint meant that I had a really good afternoon. Isn’t that what the little seven-year old singer with the big imagination would have thought? A little paint under your fingernails means you let your imagination run wild. And I think all of us adults need a little more of that in our lives.

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