I am writing on behalf of my daughter Jess, total aficionado and mega pro on LEGOs®. She has been working on many pieces by herself but when she moved back home recently, things went to the next level. It became our thing. Now, mind you, she is the one building but she delegated responsibilities to me such as opening bags and organizing pieces, as well as being the snack person. Lol. Absolutely loved it as it connected me back with my daughter and I recovered so much time lost while she was a kid and I was too busy working :(. LEGOs® brought us closer and build a connection that we were trying to establish back for so long.
That is our happy story of a mom who reconnected with her daughter through LEGOs®.
Unfortunately, shortly after we had a good thing going, she had several pieces that we acquired over months and mommy even financed some, Hurricane Helene came and literally washed it all away. We could not salvage even 10% of her pieces. We had done masterpieces such as the lighthouse, milky way, Concorde, museum, many cars and all the flowers, Japanese garden and the pyramid, oh my, so many. Millennium Falcon!
We lost everything on the storm and could only salvage very little personal items such as clothes. It was very sad to see her whole collection, pride and joy, all gone with the surge. And it had been emotionally drowning.
Although this was an extremely happy story in the beginning, it turned out to be really sad because of a disaster outside of our control. We’re trying to rebuild our lives but LEGOs® were such a big part of such a happy part of our lives, that I wanted to share with everyone. I don’t know when we will build LEGOs® again, but I sure do hope it happens soon!
A rising star in the LEGO®-sphere is about to Super Nova! Her name is Mati Stack. Her LEGO® journey began at the age of seven when her “papi”(Spanish for father) gifted her first LEGO® set.
She hails from the Bronx, in New York City and is of Puerto Rican descent, just like “JLO from the block,” and is affectionately our LEGO® JLO from the “Brick” (pun intended). Even more intriguing about Mati is she attended the prestigious Aviation High School in New York City, where she learned technical skills, including the building of aircraft out of wood and metal structures.
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
She learned to work with her hands, and building is now simply an intuitive skill for her. Mati is a lifelong Star Wars fan. And in 2015 she was inducted back into the LEGO®-sphere through the Star Wars micro sets. She became infatuated with the ability to build using LEGO® bricks. Then, in 2016, she attended her first LEGO® convention, where she was introduced to artists and artwork using LEGO® as the creative canvas.
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Influenced by these artists, she repeatedly attended moreconventions as a novice artist herself. At the premiere of LEGO® Masters she connected with a few contestants, and her passion blossomed.
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
She became an exhibitor at conventions and immersed herself into making LEGO® art and tryout for the LEGO® master show as well. Her LEGO® building team is affectionately named the “Puerto Brickans,” paying homage to her own cultural heritage. Mati and her daughter are the creative power house of this team. They made it as far as alternates and strive to appear in the LEGO® show. She received commissions to build LEGO® art pieces for wealthy clients in the past two years and was encouraged to display her works in a studio. Her LEGO® passion filled every part of her life.
Photo submitted by: Mati Stack
While spending weekends creating LEGO® art with her granddaughter, she saw that something more was happening: They created art and icons of the time they spent together and served as a memory of the smiles and laughter they shared together. That’s when her concept of building friendships and memories with LEGO® bricks was born. She then launched the “Brick Cre8” concept and business model.
Mati Stack – Florida, USA
Find out more about Mati’s new venture, Brick Create:
LEGO® has been a part of my life since I was a child in the 1970s, and I feel the brand has grown over the years with me. I had an abundance of LEGO® kits, mainly LEGO® system and Space. One thing I remember was that I used to build ‘play sets’ and ‘ships’ for my Star Wars figures as a kid. I had Star Wars toys, but I had this massive box of plastic bricks that I could literally build anything I wanted and created so much to entertain myself.
Growing up with LEGO® and Star Wars, you can imagine how blown away I was when LEGO® had the franchise to produce sets. LEGO® is a premium product, and I simply cannot, like millions of others, bring myself to buy third party stuff. But I find now that I work for a living and I can afford to buy bigger and better sets, so for me the dream, the childhood escape continues.
During lockdown in 2020, I started working from home, and the amount of money I noticed that I was saving by not spending it on fuel, I discovered the very slippery slope of buying the modular buildings and more expensive sets, and I love them! The minifigs really make it for me too. I know there are thousands, but I have a small collection of the ones I really love, and treasure them more than some of the bigger sets I have. The whole notion that anything is possible in the mind of a child still runs through my veins even though I’m in my late 40s, from the sane to the ridiculous, there are no limits.
When I bought my first modular, the Bookstore, I just had this idea that I would get the mini figures to actually build the building. I’m always posting on social media, so what better thing to do than to document the construction of this new kit. Blending the characters from different genres was also a fascinating concept to me, because in this world of mine anything was possible. The notion of Darth Vader’s troopers building a building is nuts, but that’s how my mind works. We know these characters from films, but to give those characters additional quirks, such as they are hooked on donuts, or have some sort of unhinged quality is comical to me.
Dear old Darth Vader kind of a helping to build the LEGO® bookstore!
Recently I had been re-watching the classic 1990s tv series Home Improvement, and simply love the show, and I’d seen on LEGO®Ideas someone had created a small Tool Time set, and I used the concept, and designed my own version in Bricklink Studio, filled it with tools, and then spent a fortune building it for real. Then I spent a fortune buying random minifigure parts to try and fit together characters that matched those of the television show, and after so many variations I’d like to feel I did a reasonable job.
My Home Improvement studio
I did a series of skits over the Christmas period which were studio based with the characters interacting with various guests, ranging from various Star Wars characters to Santa Claus, with all the ensuing catastrophes that happen due to the nature of Tim’s character. This lead to a Tim and Al special ‘acquiring’ the parts to build a LEGO® Galaxy Commander ship, one of my childhood favourites (which I’d acquired on eBay for a great price) have them testing it out, and being picked up on the scanners of the Imperial Empire, with Vader insisting they track the ship.
Also I did a ‘Tim and l’ build the LEGO® Diner, and friends and family seem to really enjoy these nonsensical pieces of harmless fun. The whole idea that a character can be killed off and returns in a future skit, via some sort of magic, or invention by a character such as Dr Strange from the Marvel Universe, or Doc Brown from Back to the Future…..is crazy yet hilarious.
I also love LEGO® Technic, and I plan to buy the new Lamborghini next. I loved the intricacy of the working parts, and the fact that I put the sets together. It’s a great way to learn mechanics and physics, and great for those with an interest in engineering. I have built many Technic sets, but don’t tend to do the step-by-step pictures of documenting the build, and just simply enjoy the build. It’s a different type of build compared to the comedy modular builds I do. Although that being said, I did have two LEGO® Death Troopers, the larger format figures, and made out that they built the LEGO® Technic Ducati motorbike, as it was perfectly scaled to them, but that was a one off.
2 LEGO® Death troopers riding in a cool Ducati!
Will I grow up, I doubt it…..but whilst friends, family and the dozens of people that enjoy what I’ve done continue to love what I do, I’m happy to carry on! If you want to check my latest adventure you can check it out here!
Long live LEGO®……these little plastic bricks have certainly, and continue to shape my life!
When I was 21 and in my dark ages, the Eaton’s department store in downtown Vancouver had a deluxe LEGO® display with custom shelves and a huge selection of sets. I was instantly drawn to the space sets, and spent several visits to the store trying to decide whether to buy one or not. I had so many fun memories of building with LEGO® from my childhood but I was hesitant to buy one. In 1991 I thought I must be the only adult contemplating buying a LEGO® toy. Regardless I eventually convinced myself it was OK and purchased set number 6877, the M-Tron Vector Detector space set.
This first purchase soon led to many more, and it wasn’t long before I owned the entire M-Tron line. Then I soon added many other sets from the Town, Space, Pirates and Castle themes. This initial purchase has led to a lifetime of LEGO® collecting and creating.
Paul with his Unchain my Heart LEGO® model
This first purchase soon led to many more, and it wasn’t long before I owned the entire M-Tron line. Then I soon added many other sets from the Town, Space, Pirates and Castle themes. This initial purchase has led to a lifetime of LEGO® collecting and creating.
The best part about buying that first set is that it opened me up to a world wide community of LEGO® enthusiasts that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. It has been a pleasure to see the community develop and evolve over the past 30 years. I have met many lifelong friends at my local LUG and at LEGO® Conventions.
In addition, I have also developed my artistic abilities and have been fortunate to have my LEGO® models shown around the world. This includes touring around the United States with Brick Universe, a LEGO® Fan Convention. In 2019 I had one of my designs, Imagine It, Build It, chosen to be a BrickLink AFOL Designer Set; and I was also invited by LEGO® to display my model, We Built This City, in the LEGO® House Masterpiece Gallery. I recently launched a website, www.paulhetheringtonartist.com, showcasing all of my creations and adventures.
Paul Hetherington with some of his work
All these amazing friendships and experiences were attracted to me because of that first magnetic M-Tron space set purchase. As you must have guessed the M in M-Tron stands for magnets!
In this audio story, Greg McDonald – the creator of the LEGO®podcast ‘For the Love of Brick’ – shares how he rediscovered LEGO® again after his dark ages.
Greg talks about why he plays with a “children’s toy” and explains why he wanted to start a LEGO® podcast. Last but not least, he talks about the generosity of the AFOL community.
You can follow Greg’s podcast episodes here and a MOC of his studio below!
My name is Benjamin Rummens and this is my LEGO® story.
As a child, I played hours and hours with the lovely bricks alongside my brothers. I stopped playing as an adult , but when I bought the Queen Ann’s Revenge LEGO® set for the 5th birthday of my son Noah… it all came back.
I have always been busy artistically – as an artist first (I studied plastic Arts) and most recently as a street and circus performer. Two years ago I got the idea to make my vacation pictures a bit more creative – and in every picture you could see a dad with his two sons.
During the last few months, due to COVID, all my shows have been cancelled – so we got back to the idea. What about taking creative pictures of LEGO® minifigures in real-world situations.
So my youngest son Janosh and I started the project again, just with much more details and with many more minifigures than before. Because we have a big collection of them the possibilities are endless!
Sometimes people on the street find me and my son quite strange, when they see us laying there belly flat on the ground with a minifigure. But we don’t really care, it is our moment – and we are making other people laugh.
So everyday we try to take a new picture, and it is very interesting because we really start to look differently to our environment and notice. It is like a never ending quest, and we didn’t even start to use the figures of Lord of the Rings.
We will keep adding more and more minifigure adventures in our page and I hope they inspire people to be creative. Even with the constraints of a pandemic, creativity will always win!
I have been passionate about LEGO® since the first set I received as a child about 40 years ago. My childhood was dominated by the building toy, it’s all I wanted for Christmas and birthdays.
My passion for building with LEGO® continued on as a young adult. I had my first child at 21, and I used this as an excuse to buy more LEGO® for my daughter to play with. Back then it just wasn’t as socially acceptable for adults to play with the building bricks, so this worked well for me! In 2009 I started to get more serious about the hobby when my second child was on the way. This was also around the time when LEGO® started releasing more complex and adult oriented sets with the Creator expert line, and the first Winter Village set, the Toy Shop.
I was very excited that LEGO® decided to start this theme. As a child I always marveled at my grandmother’s ceramic winter village display she would put out each year on their fireplace mantel. The thought of recreating this in LEGO® was quite exciting and a tradition I wanted to carry on in the family in a new form.
The first rendition of my Winter Village was displayed in 2010 once the second set was released from LEGO®, and I had a modest setup with some customizations. This of course continued to grow each year as new sets were released and I acquired more pieces via buying on BrickLink and harvesting extra inventory from my own BrickLink store.
Photo by author
Around Christmas 2019 I realized I had to rethink my display with the limited space I had and the ever increasing number of sets and parts I had at my disposal. I knew I had to build up. The living room credenza was the only space I had and it measures 63″ x 16″ deep. Work began on planning the structure and ordering parts.
Due to COVID, I had more time and budget on my hand as we were at home a lot and were not traveling much. So In the summer of 2020 I finalized my design on paper and ordered the final parts I would need to build my vision. I sorted and organized everything and started the build, from scratch, in October. I spent about a month getting everything just right and to the point you see it here in my video.
My future plans include lighting and to add some movement with power functions, as there is lot’s of space under the elevated section in the back.
I have received so much positive feedback for my creation, and hopefully this inspires others to keep building!
經過多個月既努力,儲左幾十年既舊SET終於都可以以城市形態再一次重現眼前。 數數手指對上一次砌個LEGO® town出黎已經係26年前中學時代了。砌呢個城最大嘅挑戰係點樣利用有限嘅空間而有效地display到最多嘅set出嚟,而出到嚟又唔會有迫夾嘅感覺。雖然實際動工砌前已經用digital方法 plan 咗layout但係砌到出嚟睇又係另一回事,所以其實layout更動都改咗三次。而且display出嚟更加要顧及觀賞/影相角度要有層次感盡量要收埋建築物嘅背面同唔好重疊建築物。(避免前高樓遮住後矮樓)基於土地問題關係我經過嚴選後已經放棄左好多set show唔到出黎只能display到1/3既vintage set左右,所以重複的建築物如消防局LEGO®總出過四間咁只能活一間了!有部分車仔我想放但係唔夠路面。希望不久既將來可以再砌大D令到個城更加豐富啦。 其實我作為一個玩LEGO®數十載嘅fans可以喺香港呢個彈丸之地砌到呢個能夠媲美外國規模嘅城市,真的滿足了!謝謝觀賞尺寸:366cm X 228cm 32×32底板數: 15×8塊盒裝使用數量:150盒以上最舊既set: 376 House with Garden (1978)最新既set: 10219 Maersk train(2011)最細既set: 6606 Road Repair Set (1983)最大既set: 6399-Airport Shuttle (1990)
Photo credit: Jerry HungPhoto credit: Jerry Hung
English version:
A Nostalgic Journey: Building a Classic LEGO® Town
After a few months of hard work, I finally finished building a LEGO® town with some of my lovely vintage sets that I have collected in the past 40 years. The previous time I built a LEGO® town was 26 years ago, when I was in high school.
Photo credit: Jerry Hung
A few more details about my LEGO® vintage town:
Size: 366cm X 228cm. 32×32 base plate number: 15×8
I tried to make it look like the old school LEGO® catalogs. Most sets in this town (there are 150 of them) were produced between the 80’s – 90’s. I wanted to build a LEGO® town that only had vintage sets, no modern city or modular buildings at all. Due to limited space, I only can display about 1/3 of my vintage sets collection. I hope I can expand my town in the near future. Thanks for reading!
LEGO® has always been a part of my life. As young as 3 years old I was playing with it. My father traveled a lot when I was young and, back in those days, the only toy available at airports was LEGO®. I used to wait for him to come home, not just to see him, but to see what LEGO® he had found.
As I grew older, I moved through the various genres of the brick, from town and space through the electronic train and into Technic. I have always been an early riser and my mother said she always knew when I was awake because she could hear the LEGO® being rummaged through.
I was never someone that played with LEGO®, I was always purely a builder. Nothing was ever finished so there was no time to swoop the spaceship through the air, I could always see how it could be improved or that it needed a landing pad or support truck.
Laurence Woolford
By the time I was 13 and moving into being a teenager I had amassed quite a collection and had a permanent LEGO® layout in my room. My move to boarding school started my path into adulthood and I put my LEGO® into several large storage boxes and hid them in my parents’ loft. It was not until years later with the birth of my 3 children that my LEGO® was recovered, and I started an entirely new relationship with my lost youth.
Laurence Woolford
I delighted in teaching them how to build but would find myself staying up late into the night building. Buying LEGO® for them and spending time building reconnected me with lots of happy memories and feelings from my youth which helped me through 2 nasty divorces. I can remember at the end of my first marriage building a huge Eagle Transporter from Space 1999 that was minifigure scale and over a meter long.
As my children grew away from LEGO®, LEGO® became more and more a part of my life. I used building as time to think and reflect. I was never happier than building, listening to an audio book and letting my mind wonder over all the problems of my life. My LEGO® was listed in my second divorce and I nearly lost my 1st Edition Millennium Falcon! Fortunately, I have managed to hold onto it although it was destroyed and had to be rebuilt from scratch!
Now a bachelor, and still a big kid, I have embraced my LEGO® heritage. It is a huge part of my life. I have a “mini figure me” the travels all over the world with me and has been to some amazing places from Maputo to Burma. It always gets a huge smile when I set him up to take a picture.
Laurence Woolford
During the recent renovation of my home I was determined to make LEGO® a permanent part of the building, making a corner of a garden wall a feature to look like the entire wall was LEGO®. It is this that has inspired me to build a LEGO® house into the corner wall of the kitchen. The house is about to have all the windows changed so my LEGO® room is packed up but I do have some of my favourite pieces on display in the downstairs toilet!
I spent my childhood as many other kids – building with LEGO® a lot. I think it was my favorite toy.
Since I had a few health problems early on, I was not that active as other kids at my age. So my favourite past-time was LEGO®.
I got older and maybe in my father’s eyes I should have had other interests beside LEGO®. So my dad told me to pack it away – and the plan became to give it away to the child hospital ward where I had been a few times. After this happened, I felt for a long time that my dad didn’t want me to play with LEGO®.
You may think that my LEGO® Dark Ages came – the time where I had to quit playing with LEGO® and find other interests. But no, my LEGO® building passion went into Technic sets. It was more a young adult type of LEGO®. I only bought large sets that I liked and built – and then would hide them away in the basement.
Around 2012, I found myself at a LEGO® crossroads. Should I keep building the new Technic sets or quit building LEGO® altogether? I think the one thing preventing me from quitting were the Modular House sets. I bought the Pet store and I was hooked. Oh how I missed that little brick – my love for LEGO® was back.
And the LEGO® that was supposed to be given away, was still in my basement.
So in late 2012, I found my way to the local LEGO® User Group (LUG). They had an event coming up soon in Trondheim, a city in another part of my country. Having never been to any LEGO® events, I decided to attend. I didn’t have the courage to tell my father I was going to a LEGO® event. I had a feeling that it would not end well, so I just told him ‘I’m going to Trondheim’. But when I posted the LEGO® event on Facebook, my dad saw it – and the cat was out of the bag. But, to my surprise, he took it well and told me that I was more than old enough to decide my own hobbies. E even offered to give me a lift to LEGO® events!
And then I took an extra step. Some colleagues at work knew about my LEGO® hobby.
One day in 2014, I got an idea to turn some of my work into a LEGO® model. I was servicing the rent bike racks. So, I made a model based on that in LEGO® – a rack, and the two service cars.
I later showed a picture of this to my manager – a few moments later it was posted to everyone in the company. I was not that happy about that but OK – at least I could finally tell everyone about my hobby.
This is my trip from packing my LEGO® away in a basement… to becoming a proud Adult Fan of LEGO®. Today I have fun with LEGO®, building my own creations and collecting sets. I no longer have worries about my father. My mother loved LEGO® from the start and my father learned to accept it.
LEGO® helped me in so many ways. And that’s why, still today, it is my favorite toy in the whole wide world.
When I was 10 years old, I remember playing with my few LEGO® sets until exhaustion. Every Christmas, I eagerly waited for the catalogues from the big retail stores, showcasing all the toys you can imagine. My favorite toys were always RC cars and of course… LEGO®!
One day, I went with my mom to her manager’s house and… I saw IT! An enormous LEGO® Technic set, that I only had seen in the Christmas catalogues booklets… and that I thought I would never see in real life. ‘IT’ was the 8865 Test Car, laying around… Half on the floor… Half on the box… left abandoned, and worse… I wasn’t authorized to play with IT!
That day, I secretly promised myself – ‘One Day I will have IT! Meanwhile (unfortunately…) I grew up, and went into my LEGO® dark ages, years went by and LEGO® became just a fading memory. just a memory and fade!
Years later, when I was already an adult, my inner geek started to come out again when I started watching The Big Bang Theory. When my girlfriend gave The Big Bang Theory LEGO® ideas set, I rediscovered the world of LEGO® again!
This year I turned 40. And one night, after putting my 2-year old daughter to sleep, I went on Ebay to look for my next LEGO® set. And I stumbled upon it… a second-hand 8865 Test car! With so many memories coming back to me I decided – I have to have IT!
Photo credit: Alexandre Fernandes
And as I write this story, I am bringing its yellow aged bricks back to vibrant colors – and I can’t wait to build IT… Finally.
My LEGO® story is a relatively short one. It began a year ago when I met the love of my life.
Having never really been interested in LEGO® except from a few of those big green bricks when I was a child, I remember walking into his tiny apartment and seeing the giant Star Wars Millennium Falcon taking pride of place in the living room as clear as day. I immediately walked over to it, reaching out. ‘Don’t touch it’ he said.
I’ll be honest, at the time I didn’t understand the fuss over LEGO®. It’s just a toy, right?
Although I never got a knack for doing LEGO® myself, it makes me happy watching him get excited over a new release or building the newly-arrived set.
I’ve been on my hands and knees countless times looking for a missing piece, lifting furniture up, checking the hoover. LEGO® has been scattered over every possible surface in the house with dishes, trays, plates, and bowls being used to sort each bag.
I smile when he gets a new set and opens the box for the first time proudly showing me the shiny manual. I too feel calm when he’s doing LEGO® to distract his mind, knowing he is safe and looking after himself.
Photo credit: Renay
Over time I’ve evolved to see LEGO® for what it truly is.
Something that brings calmness and joy when everything is turbulent around you. A moment of peace and structure in uncertainty.
I’m looking forward to continuing my LEGO® story, albeit through someone else.
When I was a child, I would borrow all my LEGO® from my cousins.
They were given to me in big shopping bags filled with bricks, or half-built with one or two parts to be rebuilt. I loved building and played with these bricks all the time building houses for my dolls or just doing official repairs for my cousins!
When I saw LEGO® adson TV, I wondered the amount of imagination it took to build such boats and buildings – and I tried my best to replicate them with my bricks.
The years went by, and as an adult was time to do the same that my cousins did for me – spark imagination and creativity. So when my son turned 5, I bought him a LEGO® box and I was completely gobsmacked that there were instructions. I had no idea!
It was the only gift I wanted for birthdays, for Christmas – for any celebratory occasion really.
What I really loved was the precision, attention to detail and the reward of completing the build. This brought out creative and problem solving qualities which I now value deeply.
A couple of years ago, I was going through a really tough time professionally and I found myself drawn back to LEGO®. You can probably tell from the picture below.
LEGO® sets Photo Credit: James Myers
It helped give me an alternative outlet from the stress and intensity of work, a sense of calm and focus. Which I now turn to whenever I feel anxious. And I have no doubt others like me do too.
At 8 I had a big box of LEGO® bricks. I mean a big, BIG box.
It was so big that I could easily fit inside the box. I had all kinds of pieces, bricks and LEGO® stuff in there. I even had a smaller red box to sort LEGO® bricks, by color and by shape.
I think it was a box of some sort of appliance my parents bought. I used it to keep my LEGO® safe from the world (meaning my dog and other kids).
Vintage LEGO® Photo credit: Diogo Lobo
And it was always the same ritual: I would bend the box slightly so all the pieces could lie on the floor but so that ALL the pieces could be in sight. DO NOT lose any piece was the absolute mantra. Even if I didn’t need it for a build, I would never lose one single brick. Never.
Then, creativity took over and castles, cars, buildings and even ice creams would see the light of the day. In the end, I would put all the pieces back in the big box and close it with that childish feeling that my treasure was safe. Those were the days!!
Many amazing structures were built and destroyed minutes afterwards, but one always stuck with me. The Yellow Tower!
One day, I decided to build the biggest tower one could ever see, meaning a tower that could reach the ceiling of my room — aka the sky.
But not just any tower, it would be a single line with one brick on top of the other straight to the sky. Will it stand? Do I have enough pieces? How many days will I need?
Construction began just after school, making sure no one would enter my room. With the coast clear, the next task was critical: choose the brick. Don´t know why I had so many yellow pieces (maybe it’s one of the most common colors) but this was the one that I had most pieces of. So be it.
One Brick to Rule Them All
Effortlessly with the wind blowing in my hair and looking at my bedroom’s ceiling (AKA the sky), I started to put bricks one on top of the other.
First try: 30 seconds later it fell, didn’t even reach the height of my forehead.
Second try: looking good and steady until someone opened the door and I looked away slightly touching it. Nooooooooo….
Third try: My hands are shaking.
Maybe I need help.
– “Moooooom!”
– “Why don’t you do it in sections and then put them together?”
– “What are sections? “ — I was 8…
– “You do one part with 20 bricks and put it on the floor. Then do another one exactly the same, and another, and another. Once you have 6 or 7 sections, let me know and I´ll help you.”
And then again I went. Section by section I was learning that a journey is made of small steps. One after the other just like LEGO® bricks, one after the other.
Once I had my sections ready to shine, we started to build it. And we only finished it when it touched the ceiling (almost). And there it was — a single line of yellow bricks from the ground to the ceiling, from down below to the clouds above.
I was 8…
I must have of photo of it somewhere. I still have the box. I still open it sometimes and remember that big tower.
‘I went back to painting. I started to garden again. I baked. I built a wooden deck. I wrote a poem. I knitted a sweater. ‘I returned to photography. I made a vase. I composed a song’.
I. Created. This.
When I asked why, the answer was: ‘I was bored. And it gave me moments of peace’.
For me, I went back to building LEGO®. It was like meeting an old friend that I hadn’t seen in years. Every time we met, it went something like this:
I stare at the box for 2 minutes. I shake it. Definitely LEGO® inside. Turn it around. I shake it again. Just in case.
I place it on the table. Slowly break the seals. Ah, the sound. Display bags, instructions, and stickers. Steal all the bowls in the flat while driving my partner mad. Sorry, sorting is everything.
Open first bag — bricks all over. Do NOT let any piece fall on the floor. DO NOT. Sort by color, then by shape. And so it starts:
Pick. Brick. Click.
Have the first panic attack when one piece falls to the ground. I summon the whole household to find it. My fingers cramp. Back aches. Shoulder is dormant. Don’t recall any of these when I was a child. Damn. And, when it all comes together with that last brick, that feeling:
I. Built. This.
Photo credit: Marco André
My LEGO® story started way before lockdown. It began at age 3 when I received my first LEGO®Duplo Farm. According to my parents, I called the pig ‘doggie’ and the chickens ‘pigeons’. In hindsight, starting to wear glasses only at age 14 wasn’t the right move.
At age 8, I received my fire station, with the coolest control tower. An all-terrain truck with extending ladder. Hoses and sirens. And walkie-talkies, wonderful devices with no access to email.
And at age 13, I graduated to LEGO®Technic, an intricate mix of beams and gear wheels. It became apparent that I wasn’t cut out for a career in mechanical engineering. The world is a safer place, believe me.
After that, LEGO® disappeared from my life for 25 years. It was like a summer love — you remember how exhilarating it felt, but you can’t recall why it ended. I guess life happened.
And we would have parted ways forever if it wasn’t for a chance encounter with the LEGO® Millennium Falcon. A story for another day.
So why did I go back to LEGO®? Why did my friends get back to their own rituals?
What happens when we have ‘nothing better to do’? Boredom drives us to become children again. We are not concerned about looking good or standing out. Have you ever heard a child saying ‘my drawing isn’t good enough?’
It is simpler. We just want to create something of our own making.
I. Created. This
We forget how to be children. Life happens. And through these rituals and moments, we learn it again.
Some say building LEGO® is pointless. That you are following instructions, a recipe. That you build it to take it down. That it is not productive.
I respect their opinion, but I know what’s in it for me. When I build LEGO®, outside expectations disappear. No one is watching. I can follow instructions or experiment. I can go fast or go slow. I can build it alone or with family. I can be nervous, happy, anxious, or tired.
It doesn’t matter because suddenly, it’s only me. Connecting with myself. Everything else disappears. Even if only for a moment, I am at peace. During those moments, Everything is Awesome.
LEGO® is my ritual of connection, a bridge to simpler times. A way to achieve peace.
Some of us have now stopped doing those things. ‘Life is back to normal’ we say.
It is a Sunday morning, at 11.54 AM. I find myself in the queue for the LEGO® store to open. I stand out: the only adult surrounded by 7 kids. And their parents — as excited as their kids are. I am not ashamed. Each of us is craving the same thing: enjoying our childhood. Or bringing it back.
I know that life happens. But weaving those moments of connection into our busy lives brings us peace. Maybe the last few months have shown us a new, better normal.
LEGO® and I found each other again. And, even if life happens, we will never part ways.
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