I have to say, sometimes pretend is just as good as the real thing. As a kid, I was always into pretend. My brother and myself used to spend hours in my grandparent's house in Queen's New York making paper food and setting up a restaurant in the "secret back porch." We baked cookies, flipped burgers, made eggs and pasta and sausage. We made authentic food, we watched the stove so it didn't burn and often times we had customers who came to eat as well. We truly thought we were part of a five star restaurant in that very cold, but also cozy back porch. But those were authentic moments. Pretend was the real thing. Marbles stood for beverage liquids and the pink stripes on the bacon looked just as real as the authentic bacon within the grocery stores. I think sometimes, as children, we have the uncanny ability to create such whimsical magic that the pretend becomes a hopeful reality, a world of dreams without impossibilities-a world of paper food but delicious aromas. 

And as we grow up those pretend or "make-believe-memories" begin to fade because as adults, we cannot let ourselves go. We feel we have to be in control all the time thinking and planning and excelling and progressing and traveling and organizing. Except what we fail to realize is we were doing all of those things and more inside our paper cafe. We were excelling at creating and organizing our thoughts into whimsical ideas and traveling to places such as Italy or France in a half second and planning for the newest menu to attract our customers and progressing towards our dreams and towards the stars. 

And so on this cold morning as I joined a group of friends for breakfast and then French pastries, I could not help but think about that paper cafe as the snow blew past my face. I allowed myself to pretend I was in a small cafe in Europe with the greatest of friends, snacking on the most petite, delicate and delighful pastries all the while appreciating that paper food I had made so long ago. 

Allow yourself to travel to that paper cafe. Think beyond the limits you set for yourself. Dare to touch the paper stars.