The Spark of Creativity

My Youngest Son is taking a class in animation at school. He is in Grade 11 and this is the first class of this type he has taken.

Last night he showed me the stop-motion project he has been working on for about two months. It is just under three minutes long and if he hadn't explained different challenges and the time involved in making it as he went along, I can hear myself nodding and smiling and saying, "Wow! That is great!!" and walking away thinking I had done an effective (enough) parenting job. Simply by watching.

In fact, that is almost what happened.

I was running out the door and he said, "It's only three minutes - do you have time?" I wanted to run my errands and get back home as soon as possible so I just said "No, not now".

I knew I didn't want to rush through watching his production because I had a vague idea what it took to put this piece of work together.

We watched it together. He asked if I had any questions or any comments at all, so I asked if he could start it over again and tell me about the video as it progressed.

I think we spent at least a half hour together as I listened to the process of creating this little masterpiece.

Their assignment was seemingly simple. They had to create a model and give this figure the impression of movement by repeatedly stopping and starting a camera and putting it all together in the form of a video clip. It had to be thirty seconds to a minute long.

First of all, he had to come up with a concept. He designed his character and then made a movable model out of blocks for the head, body, hands, ankles and feet. These were attached together by drilling a small hole into the blocks then gluing twisted wires into the holes to create the movable arms, legs and neck. Then this was meticulously painted to correlate with the character he had chosen.

Then he created a story line and wrote a script. Each word his character would eventually say, would be correlated with a frame of this animation. His wood and wire character's body language and actions would have to match up with the script.

Then came the actual 'filming' of this character. The process of taking frame by frame pictures to put together into a format which would become a moving picture is beyond my comprehension. He added his own hand as a 'character' within the plot which made the process even more complicated.

His model kept coming apart and I cannot quite remember how many shoulder and ankle replacements his character underwent in the process of making this film. Not to mention the neck adjustment which he didn't notice his character needed as the wear and tear on the neck joint eventually became apparent as filming progressed.

Once the 'film' was finally complete, he added his voice to the character's motions to match the words with the movement of his animation.

Then there were the sound effects. He explained how he simulated the sense of hearing things from a distance, when his character walked away from the camera. He told me how he created the thud of his character walking into the camera. He showed me how he changed camera angles so he could remove his hand out of the scene without affecting the integrity of his storyline. Then again, how he moved the camera to simulate the vibration when 'the hand' hit the platform on the set.

Last, was the addition of music. Self-created music to go with the ebbs, flows and development of the plot. Yes, the music was an original score. He enlisted the help of a friend to create the exact mood he was after. He tried to create the music himself except he realized he doesn't 'have a beat' and when he put his own music to a metronome, his timing was all off. Who knew music writers had to think of such things as timing!?? I thought the timing was a natural part of the creative process. This was beginning to sound a lot like math.

He worked with his friend, telling him the feeling he had inside of his head. He pulled his own music out of his head with the help of this friend. He knew the mood he was looking for and he explained the effects that you don't even consciously hear because the music fits seamlessly into  story.

After he explained the whole process to me, he critiqued his work. Shadows where there shouldn't have been shadows. His hand made it into the bottom of the screen once because he didn't see it during 'filming' due to the toolbar on the bottom of the screen. His character's head becoming crooked before he noticed and gave him a neck alignment.

He explained the finer parts of the dialogue which went far above my head because I had never heard of this Marvel Comic character (which is coming to a theatre to us someday year soon). Then the music, sound effects and dialogue which was still part of the story-in-progress as the end credits rolled across the screen.

I was in awe of the multidimensional creative process to put this three minute animation together. What an exercise for the brain! It wasn't just creating a moving character. It was a scripted storyline, musically scored cinematic production of the Grade 11 kind.

I am certain I am still missing some of the finer nuances of this project. Even so, I am in awe of the process of putting the spark of an idea into a reality others can enjoy. It is that which one doesn't see, the creative process in motion, which intrigues and inspires me. When it all comes together in one seamless, fluid line called 'a song', 'a book', 'a commercial', 'a painting', 'a recipe', 'a monologue or speech or conversation', 'a movie' or any multitude of things we call art, my heart swells just a little.

To take a spark and turn it into something that may make one other person feel something, feel anything ... these are the ways we change our world. One Grade 11 student at a time. One person at a time. These are the ways we all impact the great big world around us.

If each one of us takes our own individual spark and ignites it in their own unique way, we could light up the world.

May you sparkle and shine today. When you don't feel sparkly and shiny, try to find that-which-makes-you feel a little sparkly inside. Laugh, cry, watch and feel your way through the day. Stop and listen to the music of your world. Sit still and gaze into the light which you are drawn toward. Follow the lead of your heart and let it take you where you most need to go.

 That said, I just realized that my favorite Christmas song of the year has subconsciously infiltrated my thoughts. "Here's to love, let us sparkle. Here's to love let us shine. If one by one, each spark would ignite, we'd sparkle with shimmering light." ~ Andrea Menard - Sparkle

 

Better News

I was moments away from losing myself to the oblivion of a good night's sleep last night when the phone rang. My heart sunk to the floor as I thought 'I just don't have any words left...'

It turns out I didn't need any words. All I had to do was listen.

"Guess who I just talked to!?!!" my mom's exhilarated voice rang over the phone line. I didn't have to guess. I knew. She had just spoken with my uncle.

"How did you know?" was Mom's second question. "I could hear it in your voice" was my reply.

Our hearts have been heavy with concern over my uncle these past few months. He has been hospitalized for over six weeks and we really have no idea how much longer he may need to stay.

He has been climbing up a slippery slope and for each hard earned step forward, it seems he has slipped backwards until he hits a precipice which stops his fall. Then he has to work forward from that new starting point.

The last time I spoke with him was three weeks ago. He may or may not have been at the top of his slow slide down that slope when we spoke. At that time, he said they were talking of letting him go home in about a week.

It was over a week later when I heard the next update. I could not have been more shocked and surprised.

Mental health is something of a mystery to me. The brain is a complicated and intricate organ which dictates 'who we are' to ourselves and the world around us.

It has been a worrisome time as we heard the updates to follow. My uncle's reality was skewed and he was (to put it mildly) 'not himself'.

When things went from bad to worse, a cloud followed me wherever I went. "Is this as good as it is going to get?" were the words that echoed within the vacant chambers within my own brain.

I processed how I felt about my uncle's 'broken brain' and compared it to Dad's brain injury (due to lack of oxygen). It wasn't the same. Dad's brain was physically unable to recover. My uncle's symptoms (while more mysterious and perhaps with the mystery came a brand new fear), were psychological. He could recover. Couldn't he?!

I chided myself for feeling like the naive 22 year old I was when Dad was first hospitalized. That was back in the days where I believed anything was possible if a person's body survived the first (near) fatal blow. If the body survived, miracles could happen.

A miracle did not happen for Dad. Could his brother suffer the same fate due to circumstances which were completely and totally different? No!

I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. I would allow myself to become that naive young girl again and hope. One can always hope!

The last update I heard was five days ago. He was able to hold a conversation with my cousin and she was over the moon.

It seems that I was right to be hopeful.

My uncle called my mom last night. While things are still far from where they need to be for him to take another forward step towards regaining his independence, he is 'back'. He is still with us. He still wants to reach out and talk with us. He is still here!! In body and in mind.

My cousin (who has been walking at my uncle's side every step of the way) called me after I talked with Mom last night.

She talked for an hour. She said so many comforting words. Though she is now expecting the unexpected and has told herself 'one step forward; two steps back' is quite likely the way things will continue to go (at least for now), he is taking that one step forward. Again.

I knew hope was the way for me to go. I knew it!

My heart has felt heavy as I wondered what in the world I could do when almost two thousand miles separate us.

Then I thought of what I always think of at times like this. A letter. And pictures. I packaged up my little bundle of 'hope' and mailed it off last week. I felt better the moment I let that envelope slide into the mailbox. It wasn't much. But it was something. And it was all I could do.

My cousin said she told my uncle to just reread that letter any time he needs to. I can't remember what I wrote but she said the way I put things down in writing made sense to him. She told me he has been showing everyone those pictures. She could very well have been telling me that just to appease me and make me feel a little bit better. Whatever spin I decide to take on that, I just know I did all I could do and the reality is that my uncle has something to have and to hold no matter what.

It is not much. But it is something. Just as my uncle has those pictures and that letter to hold onto, my cousin, my mom, our family, anyone my uncle has been able to talk with and I ... we all have those words to hold onto.

Words. Spoken, written, sung or even those we have wafting through our minds ... words hold such power.

The power of those two conversations long after I thought I was ready to call it a day last night will sustain me until I speak to my uncle again. Which if all goes according to plan, should happen this upcoming weekend. Even if all doesn't go as planned, it means the world to me that he is asking to talk with me. His wish is my gift.

It was much better news than I dared to hope for. But I hoped for it anyway. "Thank you!"

Looking Forward to a Cat Day

The whiteboard is white again.

All social obligations have been met and I am free to be me again. This could entail a lot of sleeping. And a lot of alone time. I hope I can stay awake long enough to appreciate being alone.

I am a solitary creature.

I recharge my batteries by hunkering in and inhaling the days by myself, with myself and for myself. I like to call them 'cat days' because I do what our Senior Cat does. I nap intermittently, quietly pad about and just follow my whims. Which mostly involve moments in the sun or lying on the couch dozing intermittently.

I used to take a lot of Cat Days.

The days when I was avoiding working on our family book project were filled with guilt-ridden Cat Days. I should have been working on the book a little bit at a time. If I wasn't working on the book, I should have been cleaning something. If I wasn't working on the book or cleaning something, I should have been accomplishing great things. I was so laden with guilt, that I couldn't force myself off the couch.

The days of working outside my home were stress-filled and exhausting on every level. I came home from work and I slept my evenings and weekends away. I don't remember doing much beyond working and sleeping during those days. I'm not sure if I was capable of more at the time. I certainly didn't feel like I was.

I think we need a certain amount of pressure to accomplish many things. At least I do. I need deadlines in order to get things done. Wishy washy goals without an end in sight are my undoing. Perhaps that is why I have such a love/hate relationship with Christmas. There can be an extraordinary amount of pressure during this season. But it comes with an end date. A heavenly cut-off-date.

I woke up this morning, realizing every little thing that is hanging over my head at the moment will be done. Complete. Given. Mailed. one week from today.

The best part of that news is that I have two complete days, to do with as I please, at the end of it all. Two days with my self imposed to-do-list all crossed off. Two days to go where my body and my mind most need to be.

Two days without pressure, distraction, work or a deadline. Ahhh ,,,

Some people call it Christmas. I call it Cat Day #1.

Burning Up versus Burning Out

And the list goes on ...

• a few more cards
• finish off a project for my daycare family
• can come up with some kind of video or slideshow?
• what idea can I dream up for friends?
• should I try to fill a stocking for my kids?! Everyone else is doing it!
• I should come up with a Christmas this ...
• ... or a Christmas that ...

I like the creative flow of thoughts that is streaming through my brain right now but I'm ready wind down and just coast.

What will I do with my thoughts after this season is behind me? I have jumped from the frying pan (the family book project) into the fire (the family reunion) and from there I seem to have hopped into the embers of said fire (Christmas). 

What is left? Ashes?!

I don't want the fire to burn out. I want to keep blowing air into the dying embers and keep some part of this creative spirit alive.

I'm tired of the pressure I feel at Christmas. I just want to give and do and 'be' for the sake of giving and doing and being. 

I want to flip this calendar page into a bright and shiny new month without commitment or plans or a to-do-list which never ends.

I may wander for a spell. I may lose myself in a great sea of nothingness for just a little while. I may accomplish great things. Then again, I may accomplish nothing at all. 

I know I need a little bit of pressure to keep me moving in a forward direction. I have done what I set out to do this year. I pressured myself into doing what I had put off for so long. What is next?

There is a spark of an idea here. A glimmer over there. Some part of this feeling inside of me has to stay alive. 

It is a fine line between burning up by doing too much verses burning out by doing nothing at all. I just want to find that sweet spot right in the middle.

I want to keep those home fires within myself burning.

I Hope My Brain Never Breaks

"I hope my brain never breaks", I wrote to my brother the other day. 

"I'm afraid we have little control over our fate" was his un-assuring but truthful reply.

Dad's oxygen deprived body was brought back to life and he lived another four years and eight months inside of a body with a brain which did not recover from the trauma.

Two of my grandparents had strokes which impaired their brain's ability to function in the fashion it did prior to their stroke.

A cousin had schizophrenia which was very likely caused by severe head trauma when he was a teenager. But it was not until late in his life there was a 'word' and diagnosis which explained his behaviour and helped his mother understand how he 'saw' the world.

My grandma was hospitalized for 'nervous depression' or a breakdown for some time before a treatment plan that worked for her and gave her back a different version of her life than before. 

When the brain is injured by something we know or some invisible force of 'bad wiring', there is a domino effect of symptoms and treatments and various degrees of treatment plans and recovery. Once it is diagnosed.

This is not the first time I have turned the table and been fearful of my own brain breaking down one day.

If all of my filters were removed and suddenly I was speaking my mind, what would I be saying? If my sense of social behaviour was tampered with, how would I act? If I didn't remember who I was, who would I become? If I lost my memory would I even care who I used to be?

I think of my grandma without a filter and simply saying what was on her mind. I suppose if I start spewing random thoughts, I would like to be like her and have innocent little barbs be 'all' that I had been holding in.

I think of my grandpa who lost his ability to speak after his stroke. I remember Mom commenting on the irony because her dad rarely spoke when she was a child and then he lost his ability to speak late in his life.

I am thinking of my uncle who has been through so much these past few months. Grief, severe depression, a treatment plan which was cut short due to a minor stroke (TIA) and the cumulative effect of all of this has affected his brain's ability to function...

I have lived with this fear of my body outlasting my brain's ability to function ever since I fully understood Dad's brain injury.

Then I learned of the myriad of ways our brain can be fully functional and held captive inside of a body that isn't capable of communicating or functioning.

Is it too much to hope for, when we hope our body parts all break down slowly but surely and when it is our time to go, we simply 'expire' quietly and easily?

"We bring about what we think about" my sister once said.

I must start thinking about other things.

I am Exactly Where I Want to Be

I woke up this morning thinking 'the life I am living is the life I have always wanted'. I am living in the centre of my little universe, nestled right in the middle of everything and everyone I love.

I opened my eyes and I was still dreaming.

I thought of the visit I had with a cousin last night. I played back the chat I had with my uncle the day before when he dropped by. I was reminded of another cousin who stopped in last week and then called again this week. A few phone calls from a few different aunts, a text conversation with yet another cousin and another phone call from one more cousin ...

And this was all within the past few weeks.

I have lived in this Fine City for half of my lifetime now. I remember when this location spoke to me twenty seven years ago, it was because I was nestled right in the middle of my own family. One sister to the east; another sister to the north; my mom and brother to the west. I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of everyone.

Twenty seven years later, I know that I am truly living exactly where I've always wanted to be.

I have forged connections with my family that make it feel light and right and easy to pick up the phone, open the door, check my email or receive a text and find family right at my fingertips.

I could probably say this all happened because of two little books.

Stepping out of my comfort zone and stepping into Mom and Dad's families to collect memories, stories and a piece of their history has made me fell like a small piece in this very large puzzle called family.

I invited myself into the lives of my family and I have been welcomed with open arms. I can't believe this has happened to me - a person who barely spoke as a child and lived life on the fringes, wishing someone would invite me in to 'play'.

The best part of all of the above is that I don't think I've sacrificed anything to be open to receive this gift of family.

My relationships with my own siblings and mom are stronger than they have ever been (at least it seems that way to me). And though my own children have reached and/or are on the cusp of the age of independence and we don't sit down and revel in family togetherness on a regular basis, there is harmony among my own little family-of-four. We like each other (for the most part) and enjoy each other's company (usually). My own little family is 'young', we have a lot of years to grow and we have a good foundation under our feet so I can only see good things headed our way.

Ten years ago, if you had asked me what I thought my dream life would look like, I would have probably listed things like: a good marriage; a good job; financial security; no debt; contentment and peace of mind.

Today, I can say I have attained almost none of those goals, except the two that count.

I am content. My heart is happy and full. I want for nothing that money can buy because I am rich in all that truly matters to me and all that money can't buy.

I have peace of mind. I can sleep at night (and most any time during the day as well) knowing I feel like I am 'doing the best I can, with what I have'. I wake up each morning with light and easy thoughts wafting through my head.

I feel like I am making a small impact within my world. I feel 'connected' to the world outside of my head, my home and my family.

I feel like one piece of this gazillion piece puzzle that is 'the universe'. And I feel like I fit. I am exactly where I am meant to be within this great world of ours.

I am but one tiny star within the galaxy. There are millions all around me, each shining just as bright. But this morning? I just woke up with the twinkle of that light shining down upon the life-I-am-living, reminding me that this is a very charmed and special life I am living.

"If you build it ... they will come"

~ from the movie A Field of Dreams

I must have built something grand. Because they came! They really came!! I am truly living in a field of dreams. Maybe I am the daughter of a farmer after all ...

12 Days Before Christmas (a very un-Christmasy post)

My thoughts have been far too serious to rush through them in the mornings the past few days.

Do I long for the mornings when the way I roll out of bed inspires a train of thought of little consequence but I write it out anyway because it is just one of the many ways I amuse myself? Not really. Some days it is best to let the deeper stuff 'steep' for a while. Let's just say I've been brewing a cup of tea that may or may not be worth sharing one day.

I reread something I wrote a year ago (It's Not Only Kids Who Wish For Christmas Every Day) and I couldn't believe the similarity between this year and a year ago. And the year preceding that one. I think that is why I am having a very hard time stating with certainty, the answer to the question of the hour "What are your plans for Christmas?"

The answer in my heart is "I want to go where I most need to be".

I like loosely choreographing life, so I can follow the path of least resistance. I am a little bit resistant to planning. Especially at Christmas time.

Weather overrules all else at this time of year so as much as we think we can plan, there are forces beyond our control at work to keep us where we should be.

My mind goes back a few years ago when I didn't head out on the highway after Christmas due to weather. That decision kept me home. That choice guided me (and my mom and my sister) to be where it mattered the most.

I hope this is a light and easy Christmas season. I hope the sun shines and the roads we need to travel are the ones that remain safe and obstacle free.

If the sun shines down upon the plans-I-have-in-progress, I will take it as a 'heavenly wink' from above, that is where I should be.

I won't obsess about the weather. It, among so very many other things, is completely out of our control.

I am walking gently through these days, ever-mindful of the fact that life as we know it can change in the blink of an eye.

I will send cards and letters as the spirit moves me (it hasn't moved me much but it has definitely steered me in the right direction) and hopefully make a small difference in someone's day when they find a personally addressed envelope in the mail.

I will do the best I can, with what I have, to walk in and through this season of expectations, with my expectations set on 'low' and my hopes set on 'high'.

Not your typical 12 Days Before Christmas Post, but it will just have to do.