Question Creativity

August 6, 2014 / Lisa / 8 Comments

A few posts back (Endless Chains) I came up with a list of questions that no one answered. Some said they were too hard. I decided to see if I could answer them and if that might spark discussions. It was tempting to scroll through the list and pick what interested me but that seemed rather like cheating. So here’s question #2, which I didn’t want to answer.

What form does your creativity take?

The easy answer is writing, obviously. And handcrafts. I love to crochet doilies (and am always asked, ‘isn’t that something old ladies do?’), make bobbin lace, struggle with spinning, and so forth.

Making bobbin lace; image from wikimedia commons

The harder answer is that I actually don’t understand creativity. Why can’t we pick and choose what form it takes? If we could I would draw. Or at least have an eye for color and design, which I suck at.

Why do we need creativity? How did it evolve? I imagine things started out as survival skills. Spinning to create warm clothes. Writing and painting to create communication. Most likely, when survival became less emergent, those skills stuck around because a few people realized they enjoyed the tasks.

But let’s think about writing, or story telling. That’s been around since the beginning of time. I don’t know that it had much to do with survival other than maybe scaring little kids around the fire so they wouldn’t stray. I think it had more to do with keeping oral history alive. But whatever the reason, why did we, back in the beginning of time, have that desire to tell a story? To use imagination to create a fictional account that did nothing but entertain? There must be some deep-seated genetic reason that we feel the need to create and I’d love to know why.

Back to the question though. Writing is clearly my form of creativity. It’s something that eases my soul, makes me happy, allows me to move through the day and breathe. Whatever it is in our brains that requires us to need some form of creativity in our lives, I’m glad my brain chose writing. Because I really do suck at color. And cooking. And singing. For that matter, I was always terrible playing a musical instrument, too, even though I love music. I have no creativity where dance is concerned, either.

Hmmm. The more I think about it the more I feel lucky to have at least a few things I can claim as creativity.

So what is creativity to you and what form does yours take?

Westward Race

July 24, 2014 / Lisa / 5 Comments

Several years ago I read a book called Women’s Diaries of the Westward Movement. One thing that became clear from that book and subsequent reading, is that the majority of women took that hazardous journey, not because they wanted to go, but because their husbands went and they were basically dragged along for the ride.

What fascinated me researching this was that it was extremely rare for a woman to go alone. I came across one incident of a woman who traveled alone, and she had to hire men to help her. Her reason for going? To find a husband.

I was intrigued by this lack of women taking on that challenge alone. Since then I’ve felt I have a western story floating around me. I even started one a few years ago with two sisters who take on the journey. But the amount of research needed intimidated me and I never followed through.

Today on NPR I heard a story about a mother and daughter who traveled west on the Oregon Trail without a husband or father. They settled in Oregon and lived out the remainder of their lives. I again was fascinated by this. Two women taking a covered wagon and oxen and their worldly possessions and heading out. Leaving safety and security for the unknown and danger.

Then I realized that the NPR story wasn’t about two women traveling west. It was about two African-American women traveling west. The narrator talked about how most people, when they picture that covered wagon, picture a white family, and how there were a lot of African-Americans who also took on that chance for a new life.

I found myself at first a bit irritated, to be honest. With the knowledge that it was so rare, and so dangerous, for a woman to do this alone, why did race have to come into the story? I wondered when we, as a people, would tell a story without having to define it by race.

And then I thought about these two women. I realized that these two women had to face even more danger, even more obstacles, simply because of their race. So an event that was rare to begin with, became even rarer. These two women stand out in history because of both gender and race.

They must have been incredibly strong women. The NPR piece didn’t explain why the mother and daughter took on this challenge in spite of obstacles in their path. What would have sent them out their door? What did they have to face and overcome and surmount? Did they find happiness at the end of the trail? Did they have regrets?

So many questions. I’d have the same questions no matter what their race.

I wish I could have known them.

I wish I knew their story.

Activism Lost

July 8, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 18 Comments

Road trips meant talk radio. Many late night hours were spent dozing in the back of a smoke-filled car while we crossed miles, the family off on another vacation. Dad would drive, we would sleep, and pavement passed. I’d wake to see headlights shining on the center line, my dad with his cigarette, and the sound of debate. We grew up with debate. If it wasn’t talk radio at two in the morning, it was questions with no easy answer my dad asked at the dinner table.

Now I have these same kinds of talks with my son and husband. I love the feeling of power, the words flowing around something strongly felt, the sense that change is within grasp. And I especially love learning, hearing the other opinion, being swayed to think of things from a different angle, being forced to question my words and make sure I truly believe.

So last week in Vegas my husband and I drove out to the Valley of Fire State Park. Absolutely stunning rock formations, billions of years in the making. And we puny, infant humans driving in air-conditioned cars (it was 111 degrees!) gawking. Art and I started a discussion around the current politics. Well, okay, it was a debate about as heated as the ambient air outside. Our opinions don’t matter here. What does, is I asked him why, if he felt so strongly, did he not do something.

Which brought up the question.

What?

As he said, he couldn’t even see the reason to start a blog because there were so many out there with the same opinions and he didn’t feel he could contribute anything that hadn’t been said before. I laughed a bit at that. What writer doesn’t question how to make their story original when it’s all been done? But he was right.

I was a kid in the sixties, the wrong age for the peace and love revolution. I envied my sisters. Too young to actively take part, I was still convinced they would change the world. I’m not a historian or philosopher so I can’t tell you what went wrong, if anything actually did go wrong. I mean, hey, we got the Grateful Dead out of that period. And the Age of Aquarius. Oh! and the Partridge family!

Parked next to us at the Valley of Fire. Not the Partridge Family bus but appropriate for alien landscapes.

But what about now? You can’t go on Facebook without seeing a lot of photos posted with opinions written across the photo. It’s like the new generation of tee shirts with statements. After talking to Art though, I’ve been wondering what good that does. What physical, tangible change is made? Art said in that very hot valley, that all those thousands of people who posted photos of themselves holding signs saying ‘bring back our girls’ put pressure for action that wouldn’t otherwise have happened. Maybe.

What risk was entailed for those people who had to do nothing but post a selfie? Does activism have to include risk? Can you change the world without risk? Can you change the world at all? I hear stories about children and homelessness and desperation, and wonder, what can one person do? Donate money I suppose, but that’s a degree of separation from reality and is that really activism?

I’m not smart enough to answer questions I’m not even sure how to phrase. In the Valley of Fire Art got pretty upset. He didn’t feel he was eloquent enough to get his point across. He always feels he loses when we debate. Well, he was eloquent enough that a week later I’m still lost in thought. Still on that dark road trip with talk radio as background noise as I try to figure out how to bring back peace, love, no war, and songs like ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’.

It’s going to be a long, long drive.