by Jonathan

Every evening, my little girls create.

Every evening, my little girls take the cardboard innards of toilet paper rolls and they create beauty. In the bathroom.

Every evening they create, and every morning I find the dried up pieces piled up on the floor.

They don’t seem to notice the great impracticalities of their efforts. They don’t seem to care that no one will see their work or admire their skills. They just do it for the joy. They do it because they like it.

And they remind me that it’s possible to make even a bathroom in Cambodia a place of art. It’s possible to see beyond the leaky sink, the bare light bulb, the plastic door, the smelly drains, the cracked tile, the rusty doorknobs, and see beauty.

I want to be like that. I want to create for the joy of it. I want to write and speak from the fire and joy inside, not for the acclimation or accolades from the outside, and regardless of whether or not the space is perfectly designed for creating.

I want to speak laughter and joy into the mundane.

And when the internet gets a bit tense and people get a bit fired up, I want to remind people that “toilet paper art on plastic door” is a thing.

And whether anyone notices, and whether my work ends up in a pile on the bathroom floor tomorrow morning, I will still create.

Will you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*In our house in Cambodia, the bathrooms consist of one small room made entirely of tile. The toilet, sink, and shower occupy pretty much the same space, and the door’s made of plastic.