I thought parenting would make me a better play-er. When I give my daughter the option to choose an activity for Mommy/Daughter time, she inevitably chooses imaginative play with some combination of her Hatchimals/Littlest Pet Shop/Playmobil/Ponies. I can’t tell you how much I dislike playing “birthday party” and making up speech for each character. However . . . setting up the scene, organizing the bins or finding specific pieces for her to use – that’s definitely my jam. It’s just the playing that pains me. She’s getting smarter as she ages though and will call me on it, “Mom, you’re not actually playing!” Guilty! :)
The Universe seems determined to teach me a lesson on this, as it keeps showing up in different ways in my life. I first started thinking about it back in early June listening to Glennon Doyle’s podcast episode title — FUN: What the hell is it and why do we need it? In this episode, Abby Wambach, Glennon Doyle’s wife is staging a FUN intervention for Glennon and her sister Amanda. Abby is an Olympic soccer player who loves competition and likes to turn everything (including grocery shopping) into a fun competition. When describing fun she said, “Fun is the experience of joy. Play and fun, by nature, have to be purposeless. It has to be done for it’s own sake, not connected to an outcome that you already know.” This caused an uproar from Glennon and Amanda who could not come up with a single example that met Abby’s guidelines for fun.
After I had a good chuckle I realized that I, too, couldn’t think of anything I did that met those guidelines. In fact, just contemplating the idea of doing something purposeless raised my anxiety a notch. I wasn’t really ready to face this yet, so I just set it aside.
Then I started re-reading Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection for the 10th anniversary. I had forgotten that she had two big chapters on the importance of play and cultivating creativity. The Universe was clearly at it again.
When Brene wrote, “Who has time for painting and scrapbooking when the real work of achieving and accomplishing needs to be done?” I found myself nodding in agreement. She went on to say that creating for the sake of creating is self-indulgent (Preach girl!). I love it when she validates my thoughts! It turns out that Brene also had issues with creativity and the chapter on that topic discusses her journey to remedy that through more play and art-making. She eventually realizes that although today’s culture ties our self-worth to income and productivity, without play we won’t have joy and satisfaction in our lives. She shares a powerful quote from Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of the National Institute for Play, who argues that play is not an option. He says, “The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression.” Ouch. Well that got me thinking. Still not ready to do anything about it yet though.
Fast forward to August and my teensy weensy identity crisis where no one needed me anymore. I was lacking meaning and structure in my days, so I instituted morning “Creative Time” from 7:30 to 10 AM Monday thru Friday. Things that were allowed during this time were blogging, journaling, personal development work, photography and art. Things NOT allowed during this time were email, social media, texting/Whatsapp or going online unless it was related to the thing I was doing. I’m good at sticking to my commitments, so I showed up religiously for my “creative time” each morning.
At first I did some blogging (see posts from late August) and some personal development work. But then I found myself wanting to make art. You see, I come from an artsy family and even did a fair amount of card-making and scrapbooking up through high school. Sometime after that I decided art-making wasn’t a good use of time for someone with lots of goals. And so it disappeared. Over the years I’d gotten in this pattern – have a desire to do art, purchase supplies, never actually use them. Which left me with hundreds of dollars of art supplies but no actual art-making. I was determined to change that. I had time now! Surely I could make art. Ha ha – Easier said than done.
Watercolors were my most recent urge after seeing a friend’s beautiful work. So Monday, August 30th I sat down to paint. It was terrifying. I was so scared the result would be ugly. I didn’t want to “waste” the expensive paint. I didn’t want to make a mess and stain something. I didn’t know how to begin. And so I sat there paralyzed with my beautiful art station all set up and ready to go.
Mid-morning my husband came in to check on me because he knew I was excited/nervous about trying painting today. He saw me sitting there and asked why I wasn’t painting yet. I told him that I didn’t think I was ready to do it yet. He called B.S. and lovingly threatened to spread my precious paints all over the paper and paint with them himself if I didn’t get to it NOW. I knew he’d act on it too. And the hell if I wanted him using my expensive paints! He wouldn’t even appreciate their awesomeness. So that left but one choice . . . it was time to paint. And paint I did. I showed up to my art station each morning, took a deep breath and painted ugly-ish things in a sketchbook. But you know what shocked me most? After a few days it started to become really fun and then I found myself looking forward to it! I found a great beginner’s watercolor course that took me through it in a relaxed yet methodical way. It has been so very good for my soul.
I’m saying this now because I know some of you are going to ask — No, I will not be sharing my art online. It is for me alone. Keeping it private does a few things – it enables me to take more risks, be a beginner without shame, counters my perfectionistic tendencies and challenges me to do something that has no outcome or product produced for public consumption. Essentially, it is solely for fun, play and creative exploration. It feels so very right. So while it feels strange not to share it with you all, I know this is what I need right now. Maybe someday I’ll feel ready to share. Only time will tell.
