We arrived last night and I had nothing left in me to write this morning. Scratch that. I actually had too much in me to write. For the last seven days, I haven’t really exhaled. It was an amazing experience but there was just so much. I woke up at 4:00am today because the house was up and hungry so I needed a little bit of extra time to reflect on this past week and this past month of mayBE.
I didn’t want to pre-schedule this last post. I didn’t want to write this last mayBE prompt a continent away with a different view in mind. I wanted to write at home where this journey began. I wanted to write from my heart today. I wanted to sit for a minute and listen and write it all down.
I had no expectations for this month. I had intentions but had no idea where this adventure would lead. I knew that I wanted to shine a light on the possibility. The mayBE. And the only way I knew how was to celebrate creativity.
Most of my creative output is largely due to people, places, and things that inspire me. This would be a large component – including others in the process.
At the beginning of the month, as I lined up people who I wanted to guest post, Ever-Patient asked me about how I was deciding who to ask. All I knew is that I wanted to feature people that have recently touched my life with their creativity in some way. People who probably didn’t know that they had impacted my own creativity. This was a way for me to say thank you. I wanted to acknowledge their contribution to my own life by sharing their story. There were many others on the list that I could not feature this time around; many others that I will hopefully ask to contribute in the future.
This is probably the greatest gift to me this month: the opportunity to interview and to spotlight them. I learned a lot about my own creative process through all of them. Although they may express their creativity in different ways and see the world with different eyes, there was a common thread that was woven in all their stories.
They believe in possibility. They create because they have to when they should be doing other things. They follow their curiosity. They say not only mayBE but a resounding YES. Yes, I will try and maybe fail. Yes, I will see the world this way and maybe you won’t. Yes, I will choose to do it this way and maybe others will think I should make better use of my time. Yes, just mayBE this will lead to something.
For today’s prompt, interview someone that inspires you creatively. Draw up some questions or use some of the ones that I used in the guest posts. Interview your children. Interview a mentor. Do it in person, over the phone, or by email. By asking these questions, you are taking an interest in who they are and acknowledging the importance of living a creative life.
Spread the love today.
I remember watching Ken Robinson’s famous TedTalk on creativity and his follow up talk. He mentions something in the latter talk that came to mind as I did this mayBE project:
There are three conditions in which human life flourishes:
1) Human beings are naturally different and diverse.
2) Curiosity. It is the engine of achievement.
3) Human life is inherently creative.
At the end of the talk, he calls for the creation of a “climate of possibility.”
I learned a lot from my children and it solidified my role as their mother/teacher/guide and what I wanted to do. To create this climate for them. Travelling abroad, I was able to sit back and witness the different ways they expressed their creativity and let them follow their curiosity.
I’d also like to think that I did some of that here. I created a climate of possibility. A place where I opened a door. A place where it was safe to imagine alternatives. A place where I planted some seeds. A kaleidoscope with which to view your own life as both ordinary and extraordinary.
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Part two of today’s mayBE will be coming up a little later tonight…it will be something that pushes me out of my comfort zone…
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