Creative Every Day 2009

Reality is permeated, indeed flooded, with divine creativity, nourishment, and care.
-Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness, and Politics

I've started participating in a thing called Creative Every Day. There is a button on my sidebar, if you are interested. It seems as if everyone approaches this project differently, which is part of why it is such a rich idea. There are a lot of talented artists out there who are participating, and visiting their websites and blogs is inspiring. I'm going to record some of my creativity here.

Yesterday, being creative included cooking something that I've never made before. I used a basic recipe to start with, and improvised from there. That was creative for me, and nurturing to my family. I also cleaned our house. It feels so good to do the cleaning, as well as to see the finished product (though it doesn't last!), and I believe it paves the way for creative endeavors by clearing space mentally. I feel proud, and I enjoy being here even more when the house smells and looks clean. It's good exercise, too!

Those two things may not seem creative to the onlooker, but to me, they are significant. Before Katie was diagnosed with cancer, I had begun renting & watching DVDs of the old Julia Child cooking shows; I was also reading her autobiography and her cookbooks. When Katie got sick, cooking and "domestic affairs" went out of the window. There was so much work to do to keep her body going, through the ravages of chemo and the illness itself, that there was no energy left over to be creative, nor time (nor focus) to apply to it. I guess you could call the way I designed Katie's medication schedules creative, but that's about it. I couldn't even concentrate enough to knit. There were many days when it was difficult to eat, not to mention cook.

After we came home from living at Ronald McDonald House and Children's Hospital, we did a lot of barbecuing and preparing easy meals. Once Katie's final diagnosis came in, the meals began to arrive, made for us by our church community; that was a HUGE gift. After Katie's passing, I just did not care about eating, but having a growing, teenage boy & a husband to feed made it necessary to cook, so I did it. It took a long time for it to become enjoyable or creative. Being able to cook with a little zest in my heart, and cleaning our house myself, are two signs that I'm living through this hell of loss; I am coping, on some levels.

I also: --made some changes in wording and added a couple of additional photos to the sidebar of the blog
--called a friend (who, by the way, has a brand-new blog) to brainstorm about making a video together.

That's my first Creative Every Day!