I am slowly packing our house for a move to Bend, Oregon in a month. Boxes are everywhere, and my daughter has been “tortured” (her word) because I won’t let her have any of them. One day I came home and several boxes were cut and altered to make a fort. I held back any comment on the loss of boxes (I can always tape them back together later) and instead enjoyed my daughter’s creativity. There is nothing precious or precise about a cardboard box fort. And yet the intimate, playful spaces that are created in ganging together a few boxes are indeed precious. I promised my daughter we would build an enormous fort after we move to Oregon. As for my own creative making between now and then, I make no promises…