I recently made a discovery: I like being a grown-up (it has perks like driving, shopping, and setting your own schedule), but there’s a part of me that really misses being a kid. Every week I spend a portion of my time volunteering in my kids’ school. It’s a fun environment. I like sitting in the back grading papers or tacking artwork to the wall and listening to the kids learn. I enjoy hearing them chatter with one another about the things that are of greatest importance to them. It’s fun to feel the energy in any given classroom full of kids. But I can’t say I’m terribly reluctant to leave at the end of my shift. Sometimes too much energy makes me tired.
A couple of weeks ago, my youngest daughter’s teacher asked me, not to pin up artwork on the wall, but to make a couple of samples of the artwork to use with future classes. She showed me the “Haunted Houses” that had been put on display already and requested that I make two or three for her files. I loved the mysterious watercolor backgrounds and the whimsical nature of these pieces.
My daughter proudly showed me her own masterpiece in the top-left corner. Delightful.
So I rummaged in the supply cabinet for paper and watercolor paints. Fortunately, my husband is an experienced watercolor painter and has taught me how to mix colors so as to have more options than just what’s in the Crayola tin. I felt prepared. For the next twenty minutes, I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I painted three sunset backgrounds, nearly oblivious to my surroundings and absorbed in my work.
While they dried, I took pencil to black paper and started designing my own version of a haunted house. Though I was pleased with the finished result, as I looked at the genuine kid versions, I found mine somewhat lacking in the whimsy theirs all had. Too rigid, I thought. Too planned.
Next try. What about a haunted castle? That would be fun. This time I nixed the pencil and cut freehand. It was too hard to cut circular windows with classroom scissors, so I reached for the paper punch. More spontaneous now. “Hmmm. A castle needs to sit on a hill, but that would block the whole sunset. Maybe I should give the castle a moat, or make a river coming out from the drawbridge.” Two somewhat shapeless blobs became my ground, but somehow, it looked like it was falling off a cliff rather than having a moat emerging from it. Well, if it’s going to fall, might as well make the best of it. I dumped out the paper punch and finished the look. Still didn’t look like one of the kids’ but it was a bit more creative.
OK. Last round. “What about a graveyard? Yeah, that might be interesting. Hey, the castle door I cut out looks like a tombstone. I’ll just cut a couple more here. Well…looks pretty flat and uninteresting. Let’s try putting a haunted mansion up on a hill. Wait, that looks more like an abandoned factory. Guess we’ll just go with it. There. Done.”
Looking at the three, I realize that I had become more fluid and inventive just by going through the process of thinking and creating. I can’t say I love the last one, in fact, it’s probably my least favorite of the three. I can't even say that any of them are stellar. But what I did come to appreciate is the creative zone I found myself in by the time I finished. And I wonder: “Is this where kids live all day long? How cool is that!”
Where do we lose that as we get older? I know plenty of people who never do let that piece of themselves go, though I don’t believe I’m consistently one of them. There are many remarkable artists, musicians, architects, dancers, and other inventive people in the world who make creating their love and livelihood. There are those who live by and for the process of creating. But it takes a bit of effort even for them. It requires some time to get “in the zone.” Part of the beauty of being a kid again is simply living in the creative zone sunup to sundown. And for that, I wouldn’t mind being a little more childish from time to time.
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