To Create or Not to Create?

as seen on the Crave Crack-Up @ www.thecravecompany.com April 19, 2010

Have you ever been asked, “Are you a creative person?” I have and I always answer “no” because I can’t even print my name straight. To me, “creative” people were my friends in girl scouts that turned the colored pipe-cleaners into a ride at Disneyland, or my friend who paints scenery so amazing you want to jump into the picture.

The idea of “arts & crafts” give me hives; I have always viewed myself as creatively challenged (at least that’s what my second grade teacher called it when she saw the drawing of my house and asked if it was my dog). My Mom and sisters are amazingly gifted, my Mom can look at a lamp shade and think, “That would make an amazing centerpiece for the Cinco de Mayo party,” and it does. My little sister is an architect and shapes the Denver skyline with her genius. My oldest sister busted out four blank canvases recently and whipped up living room art that could be displayed at The Met. I can speak in public no problem, play through on a golf course full of men easy, but put a blank canvas in front of me and I am paralyzed with fear, let alone four.

However, I have learned that “creativity” takes many forms and all of us have some creative gift to offer the world. It’s not really a question to create, but rather a question of whether you will allow yourself to let your creativity flow through you into the world. I have always had a burning desire to make pottery; I would be so Demi Moore in Ghost, but I’m too afraid I wouldn’t even be able to make a cereal bowl. Fear is what stumps our creativity, there’s nothing scarier than putting your creativity out in the world and having a teacher say, “Is that your puppy?”

Creativity is a funny thing! I find myself most creative in the shower or the bathroom…what’s with that? Superman had a phone booth, I have the ladies lounge. At board meetings, I run to the bathroom and always come back with the break through solution to our challenge. My friends now know that when I come back from the restroom and say, “Guess what I was thinking”, they strap in for something amazing. When I have a problem to figure out, I take a shower. There’s something about that water flowing over my brain that interrupts the normal chatter and makes way for a creative breakthrough. I’ve gone through many laptops trying to write this column in the shower!

I have three books in the works, one for business, a funny one with my life stories, and of course a great fiction with a “hoochie” heroine who has a fling with the UPS man. I read a quote recently that I loved, it said, “Good girls want to have fun, bad girls make sure they do!” The leading lady in my novel is one of those bad chicks.

Spring is an amazing time of creation, look around, that dirt pile you’ve been passing along your drive now has a rainbow of colors bursting out of it. The birds are chiming in and adding their song to the season. My neighbor kids drew a cute picture on my car hood in the pollen dust. It’s time to wake up your creative juices and let them fly. Don’t miss a chance to show the world what’s growing under your dirt pile, take a nice long shower and come out and CREATE!