Worry and Creativity
I created the worry doll pocket angels because, well, it’s been hard not to worry lately. I find that having something to hold, something to ground worry into helps me. Otherwise, my mind races and it feels like there is a hamster wheel spinning somewhere between my head and my heart. I cannot get anything done. What do we do with worry? Can we turn it into creativity? The only way these pocket angels don’t work is if you don’t believe in them. Hold one in your pocket, rub it between your forefinger and thumb, give it all of your worry and then begin to pay attention to what he shows you.
My dad Greg was twenty-two when he became my dad, just finishing up his senior year at St. Norbert College. The draft for the Vietnam war was in full swing. My mom changed her major from art to education in order to graduate early. My dad tried to quit the track team, of which he was the star, so that he could work more hours to support his young family. His track coach found a way to accommodate, my dad’s lottery number wasn’t called, and yet I imagine that time of his life felt very overwhelming and scary. If it did, he didn’t show it to me. He wrote me a poem that year. It starts, “We sat, not on rocks, but on concrete blocks, that lined the banks of the Fox river …”
A few years later, in Springfield, we walked home from the wading pool and a sliver of the moon lit our way home. He asked me what the moon looked like and I said, “a banana.” My friend Giselle, who was along for the swim, said, “a fingernail.” He liked my answer. He loved Giselle’s. From that point on I have always sought the best metaphor. Greg is an expert on turning stress into stories. Where are you at in your creative process? Are the ideas flowing? Are you stuck? Are you mid-novel and cannot find your way out? Are you writing a song and the lyrics are falling flat? Wait, what’s that? You aren’t creative?! Not at all?! I don’t believe you. Greg doesn’t believe you. Go outside. Look at the moon. Tell me what it looks like. Go sit on the banks of the closest river, even if the entire world seems to be crashing around you and look for poetry. Imagine Greg sitting next to you, skipping stones.
Being creative is a practiced skill. Have fun with it. Go to the grocery store and when you get back home, write down everything you noticed: the baby crying in the stroller, the man who smelled like cigars, the loaves of white bread stacked neatly in rows, and how the only donuts left were the plain ones. What you notice matters. What you pay attention to is telling you things about your thoughts. Buried in there somewhere is your most creative self.
