I’m sitting here in a sunlit front room listening to the constant flow of Denver traffic through the windows and brainstorming what to write. Just an hour ago I was with Clinton, my co-author, working on more of our book. There are a few scenes I am working on that are not quite fully uncovered yet and today I was focusing on a storm scene. After recently attending the Maurice Sendak exhibit at the Denver Art Museum I have been inspired by one of his practices he called “Fantasy Sketches.” Sendak would listen to a piece of classical music and challenge himself to draw a story within the time limit of the song. One of those “Fantasy Sketches” ended up being the skeleton of his most acclaimed work “Where the Wild Things Are”. So when I sit down to write lately I have been choosing pieces of music which convey the mood of the scene I am trying to write. I jot down words, phrases, and images that come to mind as I listen and then later consider whether any of what I jotted down belongs in the scene. I’ve also been experimenting with my poetry process lately by reading the poems I have written out loud while adding body movements and breath to see how I can bring the words more life.
As I heal and release more and more tightly held trauma from my body, I am coming back to her as my most valuable instrument.
If you really take the time to observe children, they don’t have to put any thought into their bodies being their most valuable instrument of self-expression. From tantrums to finger painting, kids instinctively know how to express themselves by allowing their bodies to interact with the world around them.
Often when I think about my own creative journey and the childhood version of myself, what comes to mind around my chosen creative expressions are things like dancing, singing, playing the trumpet, acting, choreographing, sewing, decorating, collaging, and taking art classes. These are very tangible things I would look to and say “See? I’ve always had a creative bent.” But today as I was thinking about the origins of my creativity some other memories emerged.
I used to eat a lot of bologna sandwiches as a kid (we listen and we don’t judge) and I remember a time when I would take the round piece of bologna, fold it in half, bite into it, and open it up to reveal my design - as if I was doing a paper craft with my teeth. I then decided that my next canvas could be the socks on my feet. I took my socks and a pair of scissors, folded them like I did my bologna, cut the center of the fold, and observed the new design. Now onto my hair. I grabbed a pair of crazy scissors (you know the scissors with the zig-zag teeth) and cut a section of my hair, testing to see if the scissors would leave their mark. Crushingly, they did not. But I left all of the evidence of my experiments for my parents to find - holey socks and strands of cut off hair. They, unfortunately, were not privy to my creative process at the time and instead just saw evidence of my misbehavior…and young me internalized that I had done something very wrong.
It blows my mind and makes me so sad how easily our most creative qualities can get shut down in the shadows of shame.
What especially strikes me about those examples of creativity is that they demonstrated a kind of natural way of living creatively… not just doing traditionally “creative” things. I looked through lenses of curiosity and experimentation. I peered at patterns and played with context. And then, somewhere along the way, I seemed to lose that kind of way of being in the world.
Please hear me that I am not just blaming my parents here - this kind of pressure to conform to others’ expectations of us isn’t just personal to me - it is a systemic issue countless people experience as we are taught to value productivity and success rather than living creatively. Whether it is in our schools, churches, families, or communities, we often feel pressure to adhere to the “rules” in order to maintain a sense of belonging. We internalize fears of failure, strive for perfection, and hide our perceived inadequacies, but what happens to belonging to ourselves? We often vacate our boundless creativity and slip into straightjackets of shame, anything to have the sense that we belong - that we are not outsiders in our social places.
As a religious trauma therapist, I often hear examples of how rigid systems discourage creative living. And I can say that while I had many creative outlets in my time participating in evangelical Christian contexts, I have one very pertinent example of how my environment hindered my creative expression. I might have mentioned before that I began my college career as a fashion design major. It was actually the only reason I chose Kent State University as they had one of the best fashion design programs in the country. I had grown up sewing, making clothes for my barbie dolls, sketching clothing designs, and watching Project Runway. I was thrilled when my sewing and drawing samples were deemed adequate enough to grant me admission to the fashion design program. During my second semester as a fashion design student I began attending a Bible study as a way to have more “intellectual conversations.” I loved the hands on work in my classes but longed for the kind of intellectual stimulation I found in my high school’s philosophy club. Little did I know I was about to have a head-on collision with the messages of purity culture.
There are many problematic messages that come with the purity culture movement, but the one that most snuffed out my desire to express myself through fashion was the notion that how I dressed (or hell… breathed) could cause men to objectify me…and if they did… it would be my fault. Seeing as I was fresh out of a sexually abusive relationship, I latched onto the potential protection this belief offered to me. I could control whether I was hurt in that way again by controlling my expression - not just through modifying my dress but also my personality. As I explore my own creativity now and unravel those suffocating beliefs, I am finally beginning to let myself see getting dressed as a creative act rather than an act of putting on my protective armor.
And I am telling you… I feel called to cut some huge ass holes in my socks.
I feel convicted to play with bold patterns and textures.
And I deeply believe that these acts of resistance matter in the grand scheme of our shared story.
Look at what is happening on a large scale in our country - those who have not or will not conform to the oppressive standards of white supremacy and patriarchy are literally being told they don’t belong. Humans - deeply creative, worthy, valuable living beings - are being threatened by authoritarian figures dressed in bland looking armor of their own.
And yet when I reflect on my own creative re-awakening, I am reminded that so often the paths back to our creative essence are found through the holes in our armor…or in my case, the holes in my socks. The holes that were once symbols of expression and exploration eventually filled with dark shame. But I wonder, if we can take a curious look at those original openings, might they lead us back to our most creative selves?
Until Next Time,
Kendra
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