A Creative Adult

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Friday February 21st, 2020 – 5:04pm.

“Un adulte créatif est un enfant qui a survécu.”

I first hear this in French but find out later that it’s a quote from the American author Ursula K. Le Guin : The creative adult is the child who has survived.

This resonates deeply. I feel like a creative adult and I feel like my inner child is very present, though I’d never drawn such a direct link between the two.

What do you picture when I say “I’m in touch with my inner child” ??? Do you see me wearing pigtails in my hair and running down the sidewalk skipping rope? Do you imagine me absorbed in hours of unfettered “play”? Maybe. But I’d say that’s a very “adult” way to perceive childhood. We tend to forget how high stakes everything feels when we’re children. We idealize it as carefree time but much of childhood is fraught. Our emotions are big and we don’t often have the means to understand them or navigate them. We have little control, for years we don’t really understand how time works or why we are being shuffled from one place to another, why sometimes we are asked to sit and wait for what feels like an eternity and other times we are being rushed, rushed, rushed…shoes crammed on our feet, stuffed into coats and scooted out the door into a big busy world where almost everyone towers above us. I was a loved and happy child, but I was also fairly serious. I played all the time, but I was serious about my play, absolutely committed to the worlds I created.

Being in touch with my inner child or being a child “who has survived” manifests itself in my life as continuing to feel really big emotions, staying deeply curious, having a rich internal life of dreams, imagination, hopes, longings…. It manifests as refusing to accept life “as is” but rather questioning all time, seeing things from as many angles as possible. It makes me crave deep connections and it makes me love stories…. I love to get swept up in them, to listen to them, to read them, to write them, to tell them.

I have a very good memory and even have friends who call me The Historian because I’m so often the one saying, “Hey, remember ten years ago today? Hey, remember when we….? Want to see these photos from that time when….” I save everything….notes, letters, emails, photos, ticket stubs, notebooks, journals… it’s probably a very good thing that we’ve reached the digital age or I’d likely be drowning in letters and photographs. My strong memory makes me feel linked to my childhood self and to all of the different versions of “me” along the way. My sister Angie was born was I was only 21 months old, and the very first version of me that I’m carrying is “Angie’s big sister Tina.” I feel connected to that young girl who took her role as a big sister very seriously. I remember Tina who was part of a family of four in the house on France Avenue. Then there’s Tina as a proud big sister again at age 6 and a half. Tina moving to the new house on Olinger Boulevard, the oldest girl in a family of five. There’s Tina who loves school and her school friends so wholeheartedly. Tina who makes up songs and skits to perform in her backyard or in front of her third grade class. There’s Tina whose parents are together and then there’s Tina whose parents aren’t together anymore. There’s Tina who gets new step-parents and Tina who moves to Lake Crystal. There’s Tina who navigates a new school, a new town at age 13. There’s Tina who starts high school, who loves science and loves theatre and who starts doing “real” shows for the first time. There’s Tina who falls in love for the first time... (polaroid and full text available at: http://polaroid41.com/a-creative-adult/)