My Journey Toward Creativity – A Mothers Day Tribute

This week’s post is different from what I typically write. Today I want to share with you something a little more personal. My goal is to help you learn a bit more about who I am by giving you a glimpse into my journey toward creativity.

My Grammy

When I was a little girl my Grammy would babysit my sister and me before and after school. I grew very close to her. In many ways, I’ve turned out the way I have because of her. She instilled in me beliefs about people, animals, nature, and God that I still carry with me today. She and I are very similar because of this.

Let me tell you a funny story illustrating one of our similarities.
My Dad used to call me a “tree hugger” – I personally prefer environmentalist, but… haha. I remember one time as a little girl I saw a dead squirrel on the road. I begged and pleaded with my parents to grab a shovel and have a proper burial service for it. The belief that a squirrel should receive such compassion stems from a Grammy who adopted two baby skunks after the Momma skunk was hit by a car. I can’t make these things up!

Not only is Grammy compassionate toward all the creatures; Grammy is also creative. I remember going into her craft room as a child, and thinking it was amazing! There were jars and boxes and totes upon jars and boxes and totes! Completely full of crafting material! She is creative and she planted a seed of creativity in me among the others.

My Mom

She is also a natural creative. My journey toward creativity would be completely different if I hadn’t grown up with a mother who not only had creativity in her but also believed I had it in me.

I had a school assignment that I had to color when I was a little girl. The picture had snow and ice on it. I didn’t want to leave those parts white so I outlined them in blue. I saw the message, “Snow isn’t blue” at the top of my paper after the teacher returned the assignments.

This is probably my earliest memory of someone telling me how I’m supposed to be creative. I learned at this moment that there are certain ways to color things and certain ways NOT to color things. This became a building block for my inner vow: “I am not creative.”

When I showed my mom the paper she was furious to say the least! She shared with me the message of Harry Chapin’s song “Flowers are Red” the best way she could considering I was so young. She assured me it was okay if I wanted to outline my snow in blue and that she didn’t care about a poor grade for the reasoning the teacher provided. If my memory serves me right, my Mom wrote down the words to that song and had me return it to the teacher!!

As time moved on like it always does I continued to hear the same inner vow over and over. The funny thing is I also remembered the message of what my mom had told me concerning blue snow. It wasn’t as loud as the voice that told me not to try, but it was there. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned that my mother’s belief about me was right. I can be creative. It might not mean creating artwork like Henri Mattise but that doesn’t mean I can’t create.

Hearing stories and seeing first hand the creations of both my Grammy and Mom, I knew that creativity lived inside of me. I’m so grateful for the quiet voice that continued to repeat itself in my head. The voice that reminded me that I can color snow blue. My journey toward creativity isn’t over but, I do have the freedom to tell my children “There are so many colors in the rainbow. So many colors in the morning sun. So many colors in the flower and I see every one.”

I’ve attached a link to a video of Harry Chapin singing the song here. (One of his more popular songs is “Cat’s in the Cradle” just to give you an idea of the style of music you’re about to listen to.) It’s definitely worth the listen! Let’s march to the beat of our own drums and encourage those around us, especially our little ones, to march to their own beat too! Can you see all the colors in a flower? Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week! XoXo