Weekly: Gather creative courage

I found an e-course on Creative Courage!!

J and I have been getting really excited about our gardening prospects, and talking more about what we’ll be able to set up (if anything) starting mid-summer and what we’d like to put in come next spring. It’s been exciting to walk around the neighborhoods here (where there are a lot of great home gardens) and talk about things we like while trying to decipher certain plants and flowers.

We can’t do much more than gather ideas at the moment, but soon soon soon we should be able to act on those ideas!

My family is a strange breed. My great uncle B was a diplomat in the 60s and loved stately parties. He came from a family of 10 children and as they were all aging, he decided to throw his own sort of party every year in rural Wisconsin where they grew up. He had his own format of what he’d like the dinner to accomplish: not only should it be about a family get-together, it should be formal with the invitation of two designated speakers to share a five-minute speech about being part of this wondrous family. When he passed away, his son took over the dinner. Together with my dad and another cousin, they formed the planning committee, which is just a fancy name for being the financiers. Every year, there’s a “money pitch” for the rest of the family to pitch in, but in general, those three cover the rest. In the years following my great uncle B’s death, the dinner format has changed. There are no longer designated speakers, but the first generation is invited to speak for however long they want and on whatever topic they wish. Sadly, there is only one of the first generation left: B’s wife. Then the floor is opened to anyone to speak. Sometimes announcements are made, memories shared, gratitudes spoken. My aunt reads from Uncle T’s (the eldest brother) diaries every year. We say Swedish grace and sing the doxology. We enjoy three generations of family and cousins therein. After dinner we have a nightcap in honor of my great aunt D. I’ve come to love these dinners even more than Thanksgiving dinner.

The “family reunion” has added other festivities, including a small-scale triathlon (commemorating B’s brother T), a golf tournament (commemorating B’s brother G), a fishfry, and a brunch typically honoring a high school or college graduate (since there’s often one every year).

Last year one of my (second) cousins instituted a brand-new tradition, a poetry contest honoring his grandmother, my great aunt D(2). Last year the theme was on none other than family, but with our move I just couldn’t muster up enough to write something and promised myself I would this year, even though another move would be happening.

I just got the email formalizing the contest and this year’s topic: loss. Whew! Heavy…. I almost want to complain.

This year marks the tenth year of losing my mother. I’ve taken stabs at poetry in the past, but I don’t think I’m very good at it. I’m reminded that I started a poem a year or two ago about her, and found it on my hard-drive. In the spirit of gathering creative courage and in keeping the promise to myself to contribute to the contest this year, I want to finish the poem and make it special. For her. For me.

So this week’s project will be to dust it off and really make it something. I might call on you the 43T community to help, if I feel courageous enough to share it here.

I wrote this goal as a way to make myself create more things, but since it actually says, “Gather creative courage,” I will state what’s been happening lately.

I’m feeling encouraged to fill my life with more literary pursuits. I find myself more and more drawn to libraries, and was walking down the aisles, thinking “I could write a book! I could phrase my thoughts in a place where they could be read by many.”

This one day after I drove by a school that had on its announcement board outside the quote, “Either write something worth reading, or do something worth the writing.”

And I just checked! My good friend Ben (Franklin) is the source of that one. It’s a sign!

To get myself in the habit of doing something creative regularly and stay true to my Best Year Yet goals, I’m instituting this goal as a weekly ritual. I’m going to keep up with this regularly until the end of May, when my priorities will really shift to moving.

To start, I just got back from a bookbinding class I took at Papersource. Using a kit, the instructor walked us through step by step how to lay bookcloth for the spine, and decorative paper over bookboard, and bind it all together. We did not stitch together paper, like traditional bookbinding does, rather we used a ready-made blank textblock, and glued that to the “cover”.

We all used the same cute map paper, and I think the books came out great! It was a quick two hour class, and I now have my book resting under some of J’s old biology books to dry.

Next up: I’m thinking of doing one of my several pins on Pinterest. My niece’s first birthday is May 20, and I think that making something would be a great gift! I have a couple of ideas already. My other niece’s birthday is July 8, so maybe I could line up something for her.