Signs of Life: Creativity & Life's Lovely Messes

Last week, I peeked outside my French doors to see my eight-year-old's legs dangling from the side of the mini-dumpster in our driveway.

"Genevieve!" I called, rushing out. "What on earth are you doing?"

She righted herself, clutching half a broken wicker chair in her hands, her face as innocent as a kitten's. "I needed some materials," she explained. "I'm making something."

We have had this conversation many times before, so please imagine and forgive the exasperation in my voice as I replied: "Ginny...what are you making out of our trash?"

"I'm not sure yet! But I have an idea. I promise I'll clean everything up when I'm done!"

Because the creative side of me and the just-keep-the-house-clean-for-one-blessed-minute side of me are always at war, I stared at her in silence for a moment before giving in. So often that creative side gives in. Even though I suspected her piecrust promise would be broken before the day was out. Even though I dreaded the thought of finding someplace, in our crowded old house, to store whatever it was she was going to make. Because I knew her promise was sincerely meant. And because every mess I have to store or display or sneak out in the middle of the night is a sign of life.

The general state of our breakfast table.

Allow me some backstory.

When I was 13, I had a nine-hour operation to fuse my spine using bone from my hip. In all the pre-surgery talks, the nurses and doctors warned me that the pain after surgery would be intense, to say the least. One nurse said, "You'll wake up feeling like you got hit by a Mac truck."

When I woke up...I felt nothing. No one had warned me that it might take a little bit for the anesthesia to wear off, so I lay on the recovery table, unable to move, unable to talk, convinced I was paralyzed. Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I couldn't wipe them away.

A few minutes later, the heavy dose of whatever they'd given me wore off. Searing pain spread through my body like a lightning bolt. I felt as though that truck had run me over and was still crushing me under its weight. And it was one of the best moments of my life. I actually laughed--a little--and murmured, "I'm not paralyzed!" The nurses couldn't tell what my slurred words were meant to be, so they responded, "I know it hurts, honey, it'll be okay. We'll get you some medicine that will help." For the space of a few seconds, I didn't even want the morphine they offered. The pain was glorious. The pain was a sign of life, and I loved it.

Now, as I walk through my house and trip over markers and crayons and building blocks and scraps of paper and cut-up cereal boxes... as I struggle fruitlessly to clean sharpie off my walls, wood chips off my floors, and paint off my children's clothes... as I stare at my own stash of yarn and ink and watercolors and fabric and basketmaking reeds, or my husband's easels and canvases and blacksmithing tools... I have a choice. I can see these things as annoyances--as they often are, to be 100% honest. I get very annoyed, and even anxious, when my house is too messy. But I can also make the choice to see each and every mess as a sign of the creative life in my family.

Whatever else I can find to complain about regarding my family (certain children's forgetfulness about promises comes to mind), however much I want to condemn myself for being a bad mother and raising them to be sloppy or forgetful...or whatever else comes to my anxious mind... this is a family of artists, where creativity is alive and kicking.

So many studies have shown that children are, as a whole, highly creative people. According to one study, about 98% of kindergarteners have genius levels of creativity. But that study also showed that creativity lessens and lessens throughout the school years, until it dwindles away to practically nothing by the end of high school (2%). Why is this?

Well, children whose creativity is encouraged, who spend plenty of time being creative and who are allowed freedom to run with their ideas while having access to coaching in the skills they need to thrive--those are many of the children who make up that 2%. Practically, this means that if I hope to raise creative adults, I have to learn to bite my tongue when I see them digging through my trash for materials. I have to develop plans for dealing with the messes, rather than preventing them entirely in the first place.

Pain--and messes--can be managed. But a total lack of them means you're paralyzed...or you're not really alive.

Are there moments of life and creativity that you're missing out on because you're afraid of the mess? Mess can look different in different moments; sometimes it really is the trash and crayons and paint all over your living room--but sometimes it's the mess of failure, the mess of having to explain to your friends, that, no, your book is not published yet, the mental mess that comes from having a thousand creative ideas pounding in your head, begging to be let out.

But neither life nor creativity should be sterile. Messes are good. Messes are signs of life in abundance.

And, in case you're wondering.... that bit of trash my daughter stole from the dumpster? It's the roof of a wee, beautiful fairy house now, a little bit of loveliness that made me catch my breath when I saw it. I'm so thankful I let it have life.

P.S. She even cleaned up all the mess.