Under the Desk: The Young Maker Awakens

I was about eight years old.

Too young to be useful.

Old enough to be present.

Most days, I was with my father at his shop and office. I carried things that were too light to matter. I swept areas that were already clean. I moved from one corner to another without a clear purpose.

Sometimes I disappeared.

Under his executive-style desk was a small world no one else seemed to notice.

On the floor, there were always pieces.

Transistors. Capacitors. Short lengths of wire. Screws. Small boards. Things misplaced, forgotten, or discarded.

To me, they were not parts.

They were possibilities.

I did not know what they were for.

That was the gift.

From the chair above me, my father worked.

Phones rang. Papers shuffled. The low hum of machines and voices filled the room. I stayed quiet. Not because I was told to, but because silence felt like part of the place.

Under the desk, time moved differently.

The floor was never clean for long. Something always fell. A clipped wire. A loose screw. A small black shape with silver legs bent just slightly wrong. No one went looking for these things once they landed. They belonged to the floor now.

I gathered them carefully.

Not to fix anything.

Not to build anything useful.

I lined them up. Grouped them. Took them apart even further. I made patterns. Circles. Little cities that only made sense from my height.

In that space, nothing had a name yet.

Nothing was wrong.

Nothing was finished.

No one asked what I was doing.

No one told me how.

Above me was work.

Below me was play.

But I did not know there was a difference.

At some point, I crawled back out.

The day continued. The world resumed its proper scale. The parts stayed where they were until the broom came through and erased them.

But something had already been built.

Not a device.

Not a skill.

A way of seeing.

Field Note

Before we learn what things are for, we learn what they could be.

Imagination doesn’t disappear.

It waits.