The Creative Mother

Have you ever noticed that creativity is just part of some people's being? I have a friend who I visited a few weekends back. I've always known her to be a creative genius, but I just always thought that creativity was a personality thing. That a creative person would sit down and say, paint a picture and let their creativity out. But visiting her, and looking around her apartment, I realized that it was all around her, in the little things she does, in the way she organizes things, and in her overall perspective.

I actually realized it the most while our daughters were playing. I watched them as they played dress up. When my daughter plays dress up at home, she goes into the dress up kit that I bought her. So this is a dress up box with skirts, shoes, the faux fur neck piece, the white gloves, etc. At my girlfriend's house, the dress up kit had some of that, but it also had pieces of fabric, boxes of old jewellery, beads, etc. The bead collection was made of tons of different beads. The girls wanted to make a necklace. They didn't have string. My friend said that she had saved a piece of gold string from such and such thing that she was throwing out. She pulled it out of her closet and the girls squealed with delight. I laughed. You see, I would have thrown out the string. Actually, I would have thrown out half that stuff. I would have seen it as junk and clutter. She, being the creative genius, saw everything as an opportunity. She could see what a child could see. I felt a bit sad, because I couldn't see it. Not until the children used everything.

I would have thrown out the shiny cloth that they wore as a wrap around skirt, and all those beads that were asymmetrical, but what made a gorgeous necklace (according to the girls), and I would have tossed the golden string too. It was all junk to me. And those old perfume bottles that her daughter uses to adorn her dresser and use to play dress up, well, those would have been garbage to me. But see, my daughter came home talking about how her friend had the BEST room and the BEST toys. And sadly, all I was thinking was that I could have had all of that for her, if only I could have seen the potential in all those things.

My friend is a teacher. I'm sure she saves Popsicle sticks as they are a possible future Popsicle stick house. She saves beads as they are potential play necklaces. I see all these things as junk and throw it all away. I always thought I was an organized person, that I kept things to a minimal to be neat and tidy, (well, except my car, but let's not go there). But now, I think maybe organized is a little too boring. I mean, I'm probably teaching my kids to be in the box thinkers before they even reach middle school. At my house, I teach the children about keeping orderly, tidy, and about "rules" of our home. I thought I was teaching them to be disciplined, but maybe I'm not doing them any favours. Actually, to be fair, I am doing them a favour, but maybe I need to ease up just a bit. I mean, we do play and have fun, but not CREATIVE fun. We don't paint or make beads or play dress up. We play board games and barbies etc.

No, I'm not criticizing my parenting skills, just noticing the difference in perception, and possible benefits and disadvantages of each. Benefits of being me- a clutter free home. Disadvantages- a boring, non creative home. Hmmm....maybe I need to learn to move just a bit over, so I can allow for those dress up parties. My home will be clutter free when they move out and get their own places :)

Who am I kidding, I'd go batty with all that stuff. Then again, maybe I could just buy organization bins and "shoe tupperware" to keep those things organized. Then I could have the best of both worlds...the anal, organized side, and the open-to-creativity side. Hmmmmm.