Comment: Let Art Save Your Life

I'm plowing through my NaNoWriMo writer's block. These sketches are slowly turning into characters. I just keep going out on a limb and trusting that I won't fall on my ass. It's so much fun.

And I've come to the fairly obvious conclusion that creativity makes for a happy person. I don't care what it is, but doing something creative (that isn't illegal or immoral) is a really easy way to end up having a good hour, or day, or life, for that matter.

I am never happier than when I'm doing something creative. And I know I'm not alone.

For example, at the school where I'm working with these dear little lamby children, there is a receptionist. Her name is Ruth. She probably makes okay but not great money. Her job consists of paperwork, computer work, and letting people in and out of the school. She's fairly pleasant in that she's not throwing things at people when they walk in. And I bet she is bored silly. There's just not that much for her to do, and it must get lonely and boring, because people don't come to the school receptionist to hang out with her, they come to get information, or give her a hard time because they don't have the forms she needs, by law, to have, for their child to get into the program, or to ask her to do something for them. I imagine she deals with everything from the desperate to the irate, with a lot in between.

Anyway, I was signing out of the building yesterday when she had started to show her Thanksgiving decoration pictures to this woman who turned out to be someone from the school district who needed to do an observation. The aforementioned woman politely told Ruth that she had to go upstairs and would come back down to see the picture later; who knows if she did this or not.

But the point was, Ruth REALLY wanted to show these pictures of the decorations she put together for her church to somebody. She had her camera out. And she seemed to really need me to look at them, since I was the only other person in the room. So I did. I mean, why not? And they were very festive and cheerful. And she obviously got great pleasure from my admiration of them. And clearly this was something she loved to do. Something creative.

So I gave her some positive feedback and told her what I'm saying here, in a nutshell; that everyone needs some creativity in their life and I think it's great that she does that for her church. And of course she agreed.

Bear in mind that when I first met her two weeks ago, she was brusque and monosyllabic. After five minutes looking at the fruits of her labors, our entire relationship had changed.

She lit up when I told her that I liked her pictures and that I thought it was great that she was doing something creative. (Which was the truth, of course; why would I lie to a nice lady? I'm not really much good at lying anyway.)

I left her in a happy state, and felt happy to have made a connection with another human being.

Creativity, expression, communication. Muy importante.

So please, go do something creative. It's November, it's dark and cold, and it's a time when our spirits can drop below subterranean levels. Go make a collage, write a poem, make up a stupid song you can sing to your kids or your friends, dye your hair pink, just do something.

It will make your day.