Painting With Light: Flight Without Leaving the Ground
A handmade plane, a toddler’s grip, and the quiet launch of imagination.
There’s a kind of magic in watching a child at play. The way their hands work with intent, their gaze fixed on a world that exists only in their imagination. This photo takes me back to our backyard in Kenosha, to the playset and a summer afternoon when Jack, not yet three, cradled the wooden plane I made for him.
I sanded it smooth. Gave it wheels. Sealed it with varnish but left it otherwise untouched—no paint, no stain. I wanted it to stay open, blank as the sky. A shape for his imagination to fill in. I inscribed something on the underside, a message for the future, maybe. It sits in a box now, tucked away in the basement, waiting for its next pilot. His child, perhaps. Or some other young dreamer.
What stays with me isn’t just the plane. It’s the quiet confidence in Jack’s expression. The way he held it was like he already knew how to fly.
“My boy who once dawdled across the grass with a buzz cut and a wooden plane is now charting his own flight path.”
And now, he is. In a few days, he’ll leave for Madison to begin his PhD in neuroscience. My heart swells with pride and aches with the knowing that my boy—who once dawdled across the grass with a buzz cut and a wooden plane—will soon be charting his own flight path.
We think we build these toys for our kids, but maybe they’re building something in us. A reminder to look up. To believe. To let go.
Some photos freeze time. Others give it back.
What would you pass down—not just in form, but in feeling?
Photo Details:
35mm film, Nikon N50