The reason I spent a night in a hotel was not to get a full night's sleep, however. That was just a perk. A major perk, but still just a perk. Rather, I went there so I could be creative.
I love to create things: stories, pictures, songs, scrapbooks, afghans. I've even tried my hand at pottery. Being creative is a huge part of who I am. I'm wired this way, and nurturing the creative side of myself is important not only because it maintains my health, but also because it's partly how I bear the image of God.
I do not pretend to have a comprehensive idea of what it means to bear the image of God, but being creative like the Creator who created me seems like a plausible way to bear His image. God is Creator. And I see myself as a creator too - a creator of words, of music, of pictures, and of many other things. And although some of my creations are shown to other people, many of them are not, because creativity doesn't require a final product or a round of applause or an audience of any kind. Creativity is a virtue in its own right. I love to create for its own sake because the process of creating something makes me more like God.
But creating something takes time and energy. It doesn't always happen on its own. The ideas, the motivations, the passions - those occur all the time. But sitting down to act on those ideas and do the work of creating? It takes time and energy, which, as it turns out, is in short supply with a toddler and a baby running around. So I don't actually create much these days. In fact, I'm often suffering from creative constipation. Ideas are constantly swirling in my head. A lyric here, a scene there, a color combination in the back of my mind... They're always there, churning away, begging to be released. But the time and the energy required to unleash the pent-up creativity simply does not come around much. So I regularly suffer from creative constipation.
On rare occasions, however, I have the chance to let some of it out. And that's what happened on Thursday night. My beloved husband offered to stay home with the kids so I could get away and have the time and energy needed to create. I was originally planning to go farther from home, but ultimately chose to stay in town and save time driving. So I stayed in Canal Park and settled into my room by spreading out all of my scrapbooking supplies on the spare queen bed.
I haven't scrapbooked since before Kai was born and I've been feeling the itch. But if writing or crocheting is hard with little kids around, scrapbooking is impossible. It requires lots of space and there are lots of things that little hands could wreak havoc on. If there was any hope of being creative in this way, I knew I'd have to leave the house. So I did.
I spent Thursday evening and Friday morning scrapbooking and it felt so good to be creative! Cutting paper and arranging pictures and finding color schemes and placing stickers made my head recharge and my heart ignite! I love figuring out what looks good on a page. I love paying attention to detail and I love accenting photos with paper and stickers and explanatory notes. I love helping photos tell a story. And that's what scrapbooking is to me. It's storytelling.
So I started telling a story by starting a scrapbook, and I was blessed by the chance to be creative for a night and a morning.
Many thanks to my husband for encouraging my creative ways and for making a night away possible! And thanks be to God for blessing me with this sunrise over the harbor in the morning!
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