It's just paper

But it's fantastic.

I mentioned earlier the box of paper given to me at age six and what a tremendous gift that trash paper was for me. Had I been offered a pirate's treasure, keys to a new car, a house, or that box of paper then I'd have no concept of value, none whatsoever, and I'd choose the paper and feel like a paper king.

So it wasn't that big of a gamble to buy some for a nephew that age going through coloring books at a fast pace, as projects. But I wasn't expecting him to be overjoyed. My brother reports he keeps freaking out repeatedly.

Hi Bo, if you were the one that sent some card sheets to Daniel you hit the ball out of the park, he was surprisingly overjoyed on several occasions. He's always coming into the office here at home and grabbing paper to staple together for a book creation or taping sheets together and making a long story paper. I very surprised how happy he was to get some stiff paper to draw and put onto the walls here at home.

Score!

That was the second email that day. In the first one he said he felt bad for not mentioning earlier how the boy fixated on the animals coloring book, obsessed, until the book was done then went straight to the book about birds.

A ream of card paper and suddenly whole worlds of creative expression open up.

That made me happy. My brother is going to have card paper all over his house, put up on all the walls. His whole house will be wallpapered with children's drawings.

Thinking about this presented an idea for another book-card apropos of nothing in particular, one depicting the early development of paper. People by the river among papyrus rushes, people stripping plants, cutting stems, smashing the stems with rocks. People arranging smashed stems in rows and laminating criss-crossing in layers and smashing together damaged stems, drying, bleaching, grading, bundling.  A page devoted to early writing. And the point of the whole project, a deflection, a page of boys flying papyrus kites, that for some reason, isn't a reality. (Probably a devotion to national projects at the expense of idle experimentation and general goofing around.)