The question came out of nowhere, as they always do.

We were in the car, stuck in traffic, nothing remarkable about the moment. Then my four-year-old asked from the back seat: "Where does the sky end?"

I almost missed it because I was looking at my phone.

We were on the back porch, my four-year-old and me, supposedly watching the sunset together. But I wasn't watching. I was answering an email, half-present at best. Then he said, very quietly: "The birds are saying goodnight to each other."

He didn't ask for supplies. He just started building.

My four-year-old had been listening to a story about a lighthouse keeper. When it ended, he disappeared. I found him twenty minutes later in his room, surrounded by cardboard, tape, and markers. He'd constructed something that looked like a tower with a paper cup on top.

Before my son could name "nervous," he called it "my tummy feels spinny."

He was four, standing at the edge of the playground, watching kids he didn't know climb the structure. He wanted to join. He also didn't want to join. He couldn't explain why.

So his body explained it for him.

Imagination is a practice. These are the four ways to practice it.

We talk about imagination like it's a trait. Some children have it, some don't. Some are "creative types," others aren't.