I saw on the news today that Michelle Duggar, the star of “19 and Counting” (haven’t seen it? I don’t think anyone has), had a miscarriage and won’t have #20 for this season’s show.
Now, this RobZerrvation isn’t really about Michelle and I wish her and Jim Bob all the best in having enough children to field their own football team. To each his own.
But it started me thinking about my own children. True, I only have two biologicals – a daughter and a son. But I have other children, too, ones that have been born to me over the years.
If I were to count them up, they would number well into the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Each has had their own unique period of gestation. And when it was time for them to come into this world, some arrived unexpectedly, others were a labor of love, and others were excruciatingly painful.
If you’re a bit confused still, let me simply say that I consider everything I have ever created, whether they are my children, a play, an article for a client, a website or a book, to be my offspring.
It wasn’t always that way. When people used to ask my what it was like to live the life of a creative, I used to say that it was like dying a little bit inside each time. That somehow, the creative process was a sacrifice, akin to the quote by Hemingway where he said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I look back on those darker days of my creativity and wonder what I was thinking. Creativity isn’t about pain, it’s about rebirth.
This only came to mind a couple nights ago as I was sitting with Jan at the Kilted Mermaid. It suddenly dawned on me that I was in the midst of childbirth. An idea had come into my head and it had to be acknowledged. I felt bad, because we were in mid discussion about a totally different topic when this idea arrived. It was gestating in my brain and it needed to get put down on paper.
I didn’t have any paper, of course. Who does these days? But I do have an iPhone, yes my mistress. And within a second or two the idea was off in an email to me so I could retrieve it in the morning.
What was the idea? Too soon to say. As I said, it’s gestating as we speak. It could be days, weeks or even years before it’s had enough time to mature and grow into something that can exist outside of my body.
If this sounds a lot like childbirth, it is. I have had my share of premature births and plenty of miscarriages. Ideas that just weren’t destined to survive long term. I thought some of them were magnificent, too. But they weren’t. Well, at least not to anyone else. So they were left to wither and eventually die.
Others burst force with little to no gestation needed. For example, this RobZerrvation. It jelled last night and was born this morning. It is now and always will be a part of me and the record of my existence in this world and universe. It is a legacy of who I am and eventually, who I was.
Like a child, every idea expressed is unique. It hasn’t been here before. And it won’t be again. Often, it can take on a life of its own. And just like any child, a creative expression – be it song, art, words – can touch others and perhaps, even change their lives as well as the course of our own existence here on this planet.
The really cool thing is that we all have the power to do this. We were born with it. Creativity is part of us all. I only learned this by reading The Artist’s Way. It changed my life in terms of how I perceived my work and my desire to create.
Creativity doesn’t suck the life out of your soul. It feeds and nurtures it. It is a reflection of the greatest creation of all – us. Each of us was put on earth to do something. It doesn’t have to be spectacular. It certainly doesn’t have to be perfect. But it does need to be shared.
As I occasionally dabble with the idea of returning to the Corporate World, my friends ask me whether I would enjoy life in a cubicle, given business’ penchant for quashing creativity and assimilating heretics.
Some of the greatest ideas I ever had happened because I was getting paid to do it. From a holiday play to turning a bank into an airline for an annual meeting, I have had the chance to do some amazing things and someone gave me a check to do it.
And that brings me to my current vocation. When asked what I do for a living, I always tell people that “I sit at home, make stuff up and people send me checks.”
It’s a funny thing to say, but it’s not the real story. I am blessed to have found my place in this world. Every day I am lucky enough to use the talents I was given to create better understanding, to help a client make enough money to keep someone on the payroll, and yes, to make people think and hopefully to make them laugh.
My children have spread across the globe… each original and unique. From the copy that convinces the uber-wealthy to book a cruise on Seabourn to the pieces that help a patient understand that cancer is not a death sentence, my kids have turned out pretty cool.
I am lucky enough to have given them wings so that they could go on and do what they were meant to do in this world. In the process, I honor that great Creator out there who put me on this planet by indulging in my own creative pursuits.
And though I would readily do it for free, I am blessed that my clients pay me child support, allowing me to let my soul sing for its supper, so to speak, through my words, my ideas, my music, my art and my role here on this earth.
I hope you are just as lucky as I in finding and expressing the creativity that we are all born and blessed with.
Out on the Treasure Coast, wondering what I am bringing into this world today,
– Robb