Rediscover the pleasure of having a hobby with nowhere to go. A reflection on creativity, childhood, and keeping something you love free from productivity, pressure, and profit.

Each had always possessed its own quiet beauty. Somewhere along the way, through years of use, weather and gentle care, something else had appeared. Time had not diminished them. It had quietly bestowed upon them an elegance they could never have possessed when they were new.

Reflection number 1 The first reflection in Roots of Reflection contains remarkably few words. Mossquill writes that "Wonder rarely announces its arrival." He leaves the thought there, without much explanation. The illustrator, whoever they were, responds not with landscapes or spectacles, but with flowers quietly blooming from the thoughts of an ordinary woman. It reminded me of something. For some time I couldn't remember what and then I recollected. I once met a woman who

I had wandered through provinces whose names had once existed only upon old maps. I had listened to philosophers debating questions without answers, followed explorers along forgotten paths, admired remarkable collections, and lingered in gardens where the ordinary and the impossible appeared to coexist quite naturally.

The book remained where I had left it, open to Mossquill's observations. But something had changed. A loose slip of paper protruded from between the pages. I was certain it had not been there before.

It was no longer a window. It had become a door. Or perhaps it had always been a door and I had simply failed to notice.