creativity | shanathornton

I play every day. I like unstructured play–no particular rules or strategies, nothing to win or lose, no set goal except to play and see what happens and allow my playfulness to evolve. Play = motion + discovery, for me. Summer always reminds me again & offers a chance to regain any playfulness I’ve lost or forgotten.

The forest is an essential playmate since it’s always changing, yet always there. Not only does it change for the seasonal shifts, but changes happen every day in the forest to offer a different type of play. As if a hot blanket were thrown over me during humid days, I stumble and fall and wrestle with the trails until I’m a puddle of sweat. I’m reminded of wrestling with my brother as a child, of trying to slip away and falling in spite of thinking I had the advantage.

Slipping on shiny stones and splashing up the mud, I dance out a rhythm and partner perfectly with the bird song and drumming of the branches. I’m reminded of dancing in the yard in the sunshine with wild abandon as my mother’s radio blared the Rolling Stones or Huey Lewis & the News from the windows of the house.

The rain splashes down through the tree canopy and running is like swimming and flying and freeing all at once, like when an aunt or grandmother or some relative we begged would drive us to the pool or the lake in the summer and we lost track of time and dove and floated in the water until it felt like we swam in our sleep.

As I was running last week, two young brothers (maybe 8 and 6 years old) began following me on the trails after I passed their family. They laughed and ran behind me. They giggled and bounded, and I felt a pang of nostalgia for the trails from my childhood.

When I run in the forest, on trails, I play the most. It doesn’t feel difficult to my body when I approach it as play–jumping over roots, slowing when necessary, gaining momentum downhill and bounding through the creek, across a bridge, sometimes leaping and other times tip toeing. I get lost in this playfulness. I start writing stories in my head, making up scenarios, laughing aloud as the story plays like a movie for me. When a character does something I don’t like, I rewrite it, try another scene, another lover, give her a different bicycle to ride to work.

For me, writing and running create the perfect mixture of playfulness. The summertime intensifies the combination with enchantment.

Today is the last day that Zoe will be six years old.

Three years ago, we started a drawing on her wall. My first inclination was to control the drawing. She wanted a fairy, and I would oblige with a “good” drawing. She could sit back and watch me draw the fairy and I would let her color the wings….that was the plan. As I started to draw, I noticed her restraint and control–she tried to suppress her desire to draw something on her own, separate from me. I knew she was struggling with whether or not it was okay for her to draw on the walls. I had a choice—be controlling or offer creative freedom.

After all, I reasoned, these are my walls in a home that we own. No, I corrected myself, these are Zoe’s walls in a home that we own. I walked out of the room and into my office, which is also in our house, and retrieved a permanent marker for her. I explained that she couldn’t write on any other walls of the house, but she could do whatever she wanted in her own room. Some parents will cringe at the freedom I have given to Zoe. Freedom to paint, color, draw, or stick whatever she wants on her walls. Yes, whatever she wants!

And, this is what she (along with me, her Dad, her baby sister, and her more courageous friends) have created in the past 3 years. Surprisingly, most of Zoe’s friends would NOT write on the walls, even when I assured them that they could. Almost as if Santa or some invisible, parental force watched them, the girls look around nervously, like this creative freedom is a trick.

Creative freedom and simplicity mean so much more to me than anything formal, organized, and coordinated. It has been therapeutic for all of us. The baby scribbles. I retreat and draw roses, daffodils, and a flower garden when I feel anxiety or sadness. At bedtime, we sit on the bed and draw, draw, draw.

My heart wilted when Zoe recently said that she wants to paint her room in the next few months. She’s growing up, and wants “plain colors.” I was terrified that she’d want taupe or sand or some other faded, muted, dulled color like I, and most people, have shrouding the living room. But, she said, “I want to paint the top half red and the bottom half, purple.” I’ll still miss drawing on her walls when the time comes for me to grow up with my daughter.