My “Theory of Creativity” blog was, in a sense, a meditation on how each step we take leads to the next unexpected step. Perhaps it was triggered by the salon Adolph and I go to once a month, where a group of us discuss the issues that occupy our minds. One Sunday Adolph and I facilitated a discussion on the place of play in our lives, and I wrote a summary of the ways play affects what we do. No, it goes back further than that. Maybe to the
introduction I wrote to my China journals, China Pennywalk, in the 1980’s. No, back further, to a trip to
Tunisia by myself almost fifty years ago. Or still further back, to summer travel with my parents, in Mexico and in Europe: we never had plans or reservations, always played it by ear. Or further still, to my pennywalks with my best friend, Janie, when we were in Junior High.
I’ve unintentionally retraced my steps when actually I’d planned to move forward. I’ll try again. I wrote about play for the salon, built on that for a talk on the creative process to a graduate class at UWM, then built on that for my first presentation at Alverno, broadened it some more for the next Alverno presentation. Last Wednesday night I read it to a UWM graduate class.
Each time I give a presentation I wonder ahead of time why I said I’d do it, why I’m willing to add extra stress to my life at my age (getting near 70). And each time, I’m glad I did! It’s always because of the discussion afterwards. After hearing my Water poem, a man who sails a lot contemplated all the forms water takes in our lives, water as a necessity, water as a threat, our bodies being 68% water. Everyone thought that number was low, that we’re closer to 90% water. Someone googled it and found we’re two-thirds water. I guess we were getting humans mixed up with watermelons.
A woman responded to the idea of putting an issue on the mind’s back burner while doing something else. She said she and her brother used to play a game of trying to visualize something without putting it into words, that doing that expanded the possible images. I told her I’d read that we don’t remember things that happen before the age of two years old because we can’t yet put our experiences into words!
I guess all this is one more example of how each step we take leads to the next unexpected step.
