Tag: creativity

Danger & Discovery #atozchallenge

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I am navigating the line that separates danger and discovery. Walking this line used to be a piece of cake—it was solid, and there was a clear delineation from one side to the other. But over the years, the line has flexed and grown treacherous, making my footing uncertain.

When my children were younger, it was easy to create opportunities for them to discover the world in ways that involved little risk. They would play in the sink with soapsuds, “experiment” with science kits that were designed specifically for kids their ages, or don their puddle boots and wade along the shoreline of our pond with a net and a bucket catching frogs and fish and turtles.

Now that the children have become teens, the line I walk is thin and often barely visible. Their discoveries involve delving into some project that has an uncertain outcome. Take, for example, the electronic interests of my younger son.

He has, in our basement, an area in which he satisfies his technology-driven need to create. He has electronic components culled from the drawers at the back of his favorite Radio Shack stores, before his they all closed. He has an array of lights and breadboards and switches and transistors and miles of wire.

For his most recent project, he created a speaker, wired and assembled and tested by his fourteen-year-old self. But then he needed a transformer and an amplifier, so he built those, as well.

And then he took his creation, and he plugged it into a wall outlet carrying 120 heart-stopping jolts of electric current. That part I made him do in my presence at the kitchen table. And I readily admit, I took a step away from the table, just in case. There was a deep sigh of relief from this mom when the entire contraption did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Yesterday, he began to assemble a box for his speaker. He used power tools to cut the ¾” MDF while I made dinner, pretending not to hear the whine of the saw emanating from the basement. Pretending there was no danger involved in my son’s latest exploits.

Today, when I arrived home from work, he proudly demonstrated his new speaker—assembled and working and sounding pretty darn good, I must say. There is no doubt in my mind that the “discovery” aspect was an integral part of the process: he built, he learned, and now, he will move on to the next project.

Bigger and better discoveries lie ahead for him. And the line I walk—between danger and discovery—becomes ever more treacherous.

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Balance #atozchallenge

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As a single mom, one of the things I struggle with most is balance. No matter how I structure my day, my self seems to get lost in the demands of raising three kids and attending to the responsibilities I have before me. There are days when I run from one commitment to another with barely a pause to breathe.

My daughter also struggles with balance. She has filled her schedule with challenging classes and demanding activities, and there is little time left to sit with her thoughts or spend time with friends.

Perhaps this is why we both always have a creative project going. She will often sit in her room and draw if she has a free block of time. I am non-discriminating in my creativity. I turn to writing or painting or playing with wire and beads. For me, at least, I know that if I can maintain creative energy, I will feel as though I am attending to my own needs, regardless of how unbalanced my life may be.

Artistic #atozchallenge

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I live in a house with three creative teenagers, each of whom views the world in his or her unique way. In my house, there is forever a creative flow of pieces being reimagined and molded into thoughtful wholes. It is a lifelong endeavor, the concept of being a creator. If you are a creator, you are constantly looking for raw elements that can be made into something interesting.

This vision and creative treasure seeking started years ago, when the children were just toddlers. We would walk through the craft store, and they would pick up items from the floor: a stray button, a piece of yarn, a detached bud from a stem of silk flowers. At that age, they simply saved the items, perhaps as inspiration for future projects.

The other day, I took a quick run through the living room, tidying up. I came across a crumpled piece of paper on the end table, and I reflexively reached for it. Mid-reach, a vision rushed into my brain of J, sitting on the couch, this crumpled piece of paper in her lap. Her pencil scratched the paper as she recreated the folds and angles in her sketchbook for drawing class. I took a deep breath and removed my hand, leaving the paper where it was.

“Do you still need this crumpled paper?” I remembered to ask her the following day.

“No. You can throw it away,” she responded indifferently.

“Did you finish your drawing?”

“What? The one with the little men?” she looked up from her homework.

“Little men?” I questioned.

“Yeah. There are little men climbing on it. It’s just a sketch for a bigger project.” She shrugged and showed me the sketch. And sure enough, there are little men hoisting themselves up on the various levels of the ball of paper.

What started out as trash had become the expression of one of my artists. And now I know: because I live with artists and inventor types, it is always good to check before I throw anything out!

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Art vs. Science

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There is a story I tell my children about self-advocacy. It is a story from my own high school experience, and though the story is antiquated due to my advancing age (at least in their minds), the story still resonates with them. As it is time to register for classes for the coming academic year, the story has come up once again.

Within the education system, there is a path that each student is expected to follow—the “cookie-cutter” path that allows guidance counselors and teachers to quickly check boxes and sign forms, moving kids through the system with the confidence that they are getting what they need. A student’s expected path depends upon post high school plans. (Because in high school, you know the direction your life will go.) If a student is planning to go to college, s/he is expected to take the “college prep” path. Those with more rigorous college aspirations demand an “honors” or “AP” path while those who are planning to go to trade school or get a job might choose either a standard or vocational path.

Each path comes with expectations for the courses that students should take along the way. And therein lies the problem. It has been my experience that this cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for all students. It didn’t work for me when I was in high school. But back in my day, it was more difficult to stray.

Before my freshman year of high school, I sat down with my guidance counselor. Back in the day, guidance counselors knew each of their assigned students and did both course planning and college counseling. (What they do now, I have no idea and even less evidence, but that’s a story for another post….) My counselor listed the courses I would take my freshman year.

“What is this? ‘Earth Science’?” I questioned. “And why do I have to take it?”

“You’re college prep,” he informed me, as if I didn’t know. “That’s what college prep students take.”

“Why, exactly, do I have to take this class?” I tried again.

“Because you are college prep, and colleges like to see science courses,” he informed me.

“How many science courses?” I asked.

“At lease two, but definitely biology and chemistry. Physics is good, too.”

“So… where does Earth Science fit into that?” I pressed. “It almost seems that ‘Earth Science’ is not a required course. I’d like to take art instead.”

He stared at me, as if I had just slapped him. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘art’?”

“Yes. Art. This one right here,” I pointed to Studio Art on the course offerings list.

He began to shuffle the papers on his desk dismissively, as if ignoring me would make me go away. “That’s not the usual course of studies,” he informed me without looking up.

I’m not the usual college prep kid, I wanted to say, but instead, I merely said, “That’s okay. I’ll take biology as a sophomore.”

He studied me intently for another 20 seconds before he signed off on my unusual course of study.

Sophomore year, I took biology, and junior year, I took chemistry. But at the end of junior year, I was back in his office. By now (three years later), he knew who I was and what mattered. To me. “Suzanne,” he greeted me. “What brings you in?”

“Physics,” I stated bluntly, shoving my course selection sheet across his desk. He sighed deeply, his shoulders slouching in defeat.

“Art?” he questioned.

“You got it!” I smiled. He signed off on my senior year course choice without further discussion.

Funny… I got into college without those extra two science credits. I continued my art path through college. To this day, I have no regrets. I seldom use science in the strict, “science” sense, but I have used art all my life.

This week, my daughter texted me a picture from her course of studies booklet. She is contemplating an interdisciplinary course, “Art of Science.” Now that’s a science course I could delve into!

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Re-naming

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Earlier this week, I renamed our cats. Because I’m crazy like that. They are, after all, CATS, and they don’t really care what we CALL them, as long as we feed them regularly and let them sleep on the beds. In fact, they’d be happiest if they OWNED the beds.

While I cooked dinner, the cats were swarming at my feet, their way of reminding me that they need dinner too, and I had a burst of whimsical inspiration I decided that the cats should all be named after characters from Shakespeare. I re-named them Puck, Lady Macbeth, and Desdemona.

“Who is Puck?” C asked when I announced the cats’ new names.

“He is a character from Midsummer Night’s Dream. A sprite.”

“And what play is Desdemona from?” he asked.

“Hmm… let me think.” Shakespeare’s female characters all blend in my brain while I try to sort them out—Ophelia, Portia, Desdemona, Regan, Miranda…. They are like bright colors swirling in the white paint of my brain. Desdemona is from….

But C was impatient, so he Googled it. “Othello. Desdemona is in Othello!”

“That’s right! I should have known that right away. One of my students was working on a paper for Othello a month or so ago.”

While I do think Desdemona is a very fitting name for my young lady kitten, the cat names… they were never meant to be serious. Perhaps we might keep it as a secondary name. The brief foray into renaming did accomplish a short discussion of Shakespeare, which is never a bad thing.

C is continuing to call the cats by their “new” names, and every time he does, I smile. My literary cats.

Just wait until I bring them to the vet. When Lady Macbeth (formerly Asia) shows up, won’t they be confused? Oh, I think I could have some fun with this….

Writing Space

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Written in response to Writing 101, Day 6: The space to write….

My children were very young when I became a single mother—my youngest was 14 months old—but I have never stopped writing. I have “paused” every now and again when life becomes overwhelming, but I have written, at least a bit, through each stage of their lives. Because I also took on an online teaching position, I became accustomed to working with much distraction.

When the children were young, I would work and write while they played—sometimes in the other room, and sometimes right near me. Often, the children would have their various craft projects or drawings-in-progress splayed across the kitchen table; I would squeeze myself in, claiming a tiny little spot of table real estate, just big enough for my laptop. Crayons, markers, clay, googly eyes and cast-off drawings inched nearer with every movement they made. When they were quietly engaged in their own activities, I could write without a problem. However, I developed tactics to deal with noise and distraction.

On one particularly memorable day, I was sitting at the kitchen table working, and W was sitting across from me, bent over some project or another. He might have been about eight at the time. The other two were in the living room, and they were not being quiet, by any stretch of the imagination. I was working, but to keep my focus, I was dictating to myself as I typed.

I saw W look up from his project, so I watched him as I typed. He looked at me, cocked his head and narrowed his eyes as he studied me, pondering what to say. I stared back without pausing in my typing or my dictating. “Mum, can you type silently?” he asked me.

I raised my eyebrows in question and halted my dictation and hence, my typing. “Do you hear your brother and sister?” As if on cue, one of them squealed, and they both giggled. W nodded. “That is why I can’t type silently.” He held my gaze for a long moment before he sighed and turned back to his work.

Since then, I always try to type silently. But sometimes, when the distractions are just too much to handle, I have to type out loud.

Abundance

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Posted in response to Writing 101 Day : One word inspiration.

A few years back, when I was young and athletic and fit, I would go out for a run to find inspiration for writing. I used running as a way to move through moments (and sometimes hours) of writer’s block. I found running to be a particularly effective way to generate new stories and to deal with ideas that wouldn’t flow.

Yesterday, I happened upon an article on running and what runners think about while they are running. It was based on a study in which ten long distance runners were wired with microphones during their runs, and they were asked to narrate their thought processes.

Ha! I thought. Wouldn’t that have been a fun study to be part of? Then I reconsidered when I realized that had I been chosen as a subject, I probably would have been sent to the loony bin before the study was over. As a creative person, my mind can string some strange thoughts together, like beads on a necklace that will attract some inquisitive remarks, but will never be the sort of thing that’s in style.

In some instances, there is no doubt that my thought process was similar to that of the subjects—Come on! You can do it! Keep going—just a little farther…. But in other ways, I would have to say my ‘train of running thoughts’ strayed far from the beaten path.

While my feet were pounding out the rhythm of my run, my head was spinning tales from the things I saw by the side of the road, the events of my day, thoughts halted before spoken, and the struggles my head was working through. My running mind tended to weave these things together in ways that might be considered unconventional.

One day when I was running, I noticed a discarded ATM receipt along the side of the road. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, other than the fact that people really should properly discard their trash. Not far away, I passed a discarded Styrofoam coffee cup. Probably the same person, I thought. Took some money out of the bank and bought a cup of coffee on the way home. I kept running.

Down the road a bit was the most unusual piece of the puzzle; a pair of men’s black dress pants was strewn along the roadway. And now it seemed that the person had not only withdrawn some money from the bank, he had withdrawn all of his money from the bank. He bought a cup of coffee, and while he pondered his situation, he decided to quit his job and create a new life, one that was less restrictive and didn’t have the office trappings. No more business attire for him!

Oh my! I can just imagine what those researchers would have thought had they been listening to me narrate these thoughts while I was running. But a great story was hatching. And running was always a means to access abundant inspiration.

May you always have an abundance of inspiration to fuel your journey.

Writing (2)

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This post was written in response to November’s Writing 101 – Day 1 assignment.

It never hurts to re-examine why we write. Back in September, I completed the assignment I write because… which gave some insight as to how I became a writer. That first assignment can be found here: https://positivelyunbroken.com/2015/09/13/writing/ I am re-taking Writing 101 because the need to write is strong. My ability to find the time and structure is weak. So here goes….

I write because I am convinced that the world in which I live will someday live up to my expectations. For now, my life is rough around the edges; stuffed with busyness and work and people who might be too unfriendly or even downright rude. Writing helps me to process and to find a place where I can be at ease, reflect, and be myself.

I write because lately, the need to write has been immediate and pressing. There is something out there that I am missing; I just know it. When my head hits the pillow at night, the ideas are knocking at the door, pushing hard to get in. As I am falling asleep, the barrier between the conscious and the subconscious relaxes. Sometimes, the ideas push hard enough that fingers slip between the door and the casing, slivers of light into a world I have yet to explore. Through writing, I believe I will find the key to that world.

Some days, when I least expect it, I find pieces of ideas scattered across the floor like shards of glass, glinting in the sunlight, begging to be picked up, examined, and assembled into a logical or creative whole. On those days, I have the choice to gingerly tiptoe around them, or to dive in and begin to assemble, using the words I write to bind and develop the found ideas.

As long as the ideas continue to be compelling and urgent, I will continue to write. When the urgency is no longer there, I will dig deeper, searching, until I can dig no more. I write because I am convinced that when the ideas stop appearing, I may also cease to exist.

Shared adventure

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I sent my children out on a mission. Armed with my camera, and all the colors of the fall season for inspiration, they went for a walk around the neighborhood so my daughter could take pictures for my son’s yearbook photo.

This plan is one that has was hatched over the summer, when I decided to save some money by not hiring a professional photographer to take C’s senior pictures. We discussed it in August, but C wanted to wait until the trees turned and the colors were bright. And he kept putting it off, claiming that his sister was never ready. J, meanwhile, claimed that C just had to say the word. It was not a promising start to the project, and I found myself second-guessing my decision.

As often happens, we procrastinated down to the wire. The pictures were due this week, and we had to factor activity schedules with days of “picture perfect” weather. And so it was Wednesday, leaving us very little time for a retake, should it be necessary.

After school, texts flew as plans came together, friends were contacted, and last minute details were taken care of. I let the kids figure out the logistics, the process, the timing. I gave them their mission, and I stepped out of the picture.

When I entered the house later that day, three kids were in the living room, laughing and chatting as they viewed the pictures on the computer. Click, click, giggle. Click, click, “Oh! Flag that!” Click, “Stop! Go back!” They flip through the photos, one by one. All of them. All 248 of them.

248 photos! (In my day, that would have been 10+ rolls of film; countless hours in the darkroom….) My daughter had catalogued the entire excursion in a photographic essay, of sorts, documenting the journey from our front door to the top of the street, and back again. Buried in among all of these photographs were the three choice moments when they stopped to focus on the mission I gave them—the sit-and-pose pictures. In total, we had seven photos in the running for the yearbook. But we had countless others that had captured a moment, a journey, a memory.

I sent my children out on a mission, but they came back armed with memories of an adventure. Sometimes, I am amazed at what happens when I remove myself from the picture. Mission (more than) accomplished!

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(all images provided by the creative eye of J)

Superheroes

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The senior English classes at our high school are working on their college essays, which is both brilliant and problematic. It is brilliant because the students will get these essays written and perfected under the instruction of their teacher; it is problematic because my son is not prepared with a topic. He thought he had another month or two to think. He has nothing to write about. Not. A. Thing.

According to this kid, there is nothing that has happened to him that is essay-worthy. And “college-essay-worthy” at that. There are no experiences that define him. I can’t even get a story from him, and I am a woman who believes everyone has a unique and interesting story.

I sat him down, and I talked to him (actually, I followed him around the house to brainstorm with him, but I digress…). We discussed the trips he has taken, the activities in which he is involved, the club he is starting at school, his culinary program, his “broken” family of origin. Still, we came up empty. Nothing.

Each day, I would hear his rants about the essay, his lack of topic, his teacher and her nagging until I finally threw out anything I could think of. “Why don’t you write about your trip to Hawaii?” I suggested.

“Mom,” the sarcasm oozed thick and heavy. “No one wants to hear about my trip to Hawaii.”

“Well, how about when you almost fell in the volcano?” I continued.

“I didn’t almost fall into a volcano—”

“And your father risked his life to save you,” I interrupted.

“My father would never risk his…,” his voice trailed off. “You know, Mom, you might be on to something!” I could almost see the light bulb go off in his head. “I can write about the time my father died trying to save me!”

Um…. That wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but that was the direction he took my suggestion. “You can’t really make up your college essay,” I informed him. “They want to know who you are, what defines you.”

“But Mom,” his excitement was evident on his face. “What better essay to write if I’m going to school for creative writing? I’m going to tell my teacher that this is my topic for my essay!” He disappeared into the living room.

I sighed. I had grasped at straws, handing him one without thinking it through in the way a high school senior might. There is a lesson to be learned here … I’m just not sure what it is.

One lesson I know for sure. Every kid wants to believe that his parents might have a touch of superhero… that his parents would do anything to save him, should the need arise. I believe we all need to believe in parental superheroism.

But for parents who are not very “parental,” who think only of themselves (year after year, in situation after situation) and their children know there is not even a speck of superhero, well… they might just find themselves starring in an essay featuring a poorly placed volcano.