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One day when I was thirteen, my mum decided that she had yelled at me for the last time over the state of my room. She was tired of its dishevelled state; blankets hanging from the ceiling and over tables, mass amounts of string tied everywhere, books covering the floor, forts constructed, coloured paper all around. Despite the fact that I was living in a large attic space in which the entrance was hidden from the main house and no strangers ever attempted to go up the long narrow staircase, she believed the room had to be perfect and tidy and every day that it wasn�t, it was a frustration to her.

She decided one day that if she couldn�t tell me that my room was a mess and was in need of a good clean that she would show me. Without my knowledge, she took a picture of my room, took the film to the store, and waited anxiously for the messy photo shot to develop. She was certain that when the photo was ready and she showed it to me, I would instantly want to make my room over into something from a glossy magazine.

But it never happened.

The photo did get developed but the image that my mother expected to see never appeared. What she saw was this beautiful array of colour everywhere. She saw creativity, youth and joy. Somehow all those ribbons looked amazing the way they were tied all over the room; the forts had a special magic to them and the paper all around seemed to have purpose. She looked at the photo and for the first time ever, thought my room was beautiful.

She didn�t show me the picture that day or tell me what she had done. She wouldn�t do that until thirteen years later when we could laugh over it, our differences, and the magic of seeing something another way.