A Happy Sidewalk Chalk World
This morning I spotted the new neighbourâs kids playing with other kids from the street. They were gleefully chalking up a driveway. Hearts and arrow, games and names, the meaning of the pictographs didnât matter; the laughter, the fun, and the friendliness mattered.
In any part of town, in any country, give kids pieces of chalk and a blank concrete canvas and they will dive into creativity headlong. No phones. No screens. No divisions. They will giggle and collaborate, grinding down those colourful sticks, lost in their own world. That world is the perfect world. Itâs a world we as adult have either forgotten or choose to ignore.
If you come across a bunch of children drafting the boxes for a game of hopscotch, stop, hop, and enjoy it with them. Once you get back home, hang on to that feeling, cherish it, try to find it in everyday activities. Corporations spend millions of dollars on âteam buildingâ exercises. Maybe a buck or two on a box of chalk could do the trick. The magic of creating, with others, with your hands, for the sole purpose of enjoyment, may very well be the existence we yearn for.