Last night I had the opportunity to be a sojourner in a fantastic land of imagination. Rednecks, koalas and vampires danced to punk-rock music, blared from the speakers of a rusty old truck outside a playground in West Philadelphia and...
Are you following?
That's what Creative Spark looks like.
Sixteen candles - sixteen points of light from around the globe - gathered together and sparked a bonfire.
For 8 1/2 years I believed that my ability to write - the joy that I had found in stringing together thoughts and feelings through metaphorically descriptive language - was dead and buried with the most creative person I had ever known. I thought that passion had packed up lyric and line and left me alone, and mute.
Writing was too demanding! The Pen pushed me to touch the raw nerves of emotions, and to experience experiences best left alone! The Pen tried to probe the deepest recesses of my soul, the darkest corners of my mind!
When I could no longer bear to expose myself to myself, I turned my face and let The Pen - let the writing - slip away.
Then, in the middle of the blackest, most desolate rainy night... I saw a spark.
Play by Post: sixteen candles - sixteen points of light from around the globe - gathered together and sparked a bonfire.
It reminded me of sitting cross-legged in a circle of friends, making up a story, one person after another, each adding his or her own twist:
Jack got in the car and...
...drove to the ocean to...
...buy a loaf of bread and...
...a wheelbarrow full of horseshoes.
There was a flicker; I approached with caution. I added my twist - my foot was in the door!
In a matter of moments the thoughts came flooding, washing over me in a fiery tide. Ideas began to flourish, nourished by the other players.
When it was over, I was spent; my arsenal of adjectives and adverbs depleted.
Now I ponder the Creative Spark. Where does creativity originate? Is one born creative or does one learn to express in an artistic manner?
Is creativity just a flash-in-the-pan, a jolt that strikes like lightening, and dissipates just as quickly? Or is it a slow, smoldering fire that needs only a breath of wind to reignite?
I think that people who express themselves creatively are hard-wired to do so. I believe that they - we - have an inherent need to communicate opinions, thoughts and emotions in an illustrative manner.
I compare the creative mind to the physical body. It is said that if a person loses a sense, the other senses become sharper in order to compensate. A blind man may actually hear the pin drop. A creative writer, unable to unleash The Pen, may pick up the brush.
Eight years is an impossibly long time for embers to glow without so much as a puff of breeze. Where once a fire had roared, there remains only charred bits of coal.
What spark ignites that blazing desire to write? Time, patience, desire - not one of those things.
It was interaction with like minded people in a frolicsome setting that enkindled my imagination! It was releasing grammar, punctuation, verb tense and inhibition and allowing my creative child to play freely with words - it was that Creative Spark that brought us to this page.
This phrase.
This. word.
The barrier is coming down and a bubble of liberty replaces each falling block. The fuzzy blue and white dots of static are blending into a portrait of the artist, as I am, and who I will become. It's up to me to capture the sparks and stoke the fires. And I will, because I know I can, for on the blackest, most desolate rainy night... I found a spark.
"And as much as she had enjoyed her evening with Bucky, Alex and the gang, Syranthia knew that daylight came early on the carrot farm and there would be bunnies and tigers a'plenty to herd, so she picked up her suitcase, dried her eyes, stuck out her thumb, and walked away into the sunset."
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