Creative People 

by Gail Balentine

Who is a creative person?   According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, creative means “marked by the ability or power to bring (something) into existence”. Other words for creative include: “gifted, clever, imaginative, innovative, inspired, or inventive.”

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that each of us is creative in our own way and often in more ways than one. However, many of us do not give ourselves credit for being creative - we think creative is a word only to describe artists. It isn’t.

Creative people:
… find innovative solutions for difficult problems.

… inspire people with poetry.

… provide a warm, welcoming atmosphere for their guests.

… write stories so entertaining you can get lost in them on a rainy afternoon.

… create new recipes by combining unusual ingredients.

… build practical pieces of furniture that are also lovely to look at.

… practice a swing over and over until the club behaves like an extension of the hand.

… raise children to be thoughtful, caring people in an ever-changing, challenging world.

Why are people creative?  People are creative to accomplish goals, to produce something aesthetically pleasing, to share their thoughts and feelings, to solve problems, to overcome physical limits, to use their intellect, to improve their lives, to invent something new, and more.

What stops us from creating? There are as many answers as there are people to that question but a frequent one seems to be that we stop ourselves.

The right side of our brain is the creative, emotional, intuitive side, while the left side is the logical, scientific, and often critical side. The left side should override the right when there is danger, when gathering knowledge, when a procedure must be followed; but, for creativity, it is best when they work in tandem. How?

You will develop your own method, but some of the steps to include may be:

… thinking about what you want to do and why it appeals to you (right brain);

… determining what information or materials you need (left brain);

… identifying the steps you need to take (left brain);

… giving whatever it is a try, taking it out of the “I’d love to …” phase and actually doing it (pure right brain). … then looking it over and tweaking it, if needed.

What if people don’t use their creativity? Well, then, the world loses some beauty, entertainment, unique expressions of thought, innovative solutions to problems, or positive inspiration. And what about us? When we are not letting our creativity free, we lose some of the joy with which life has gifted us, we lose that sense of something well-done, we don’t encourage others and we will not reach our full potential. Everybody loses.

So, why not do something fun/creative that you’ve been wanting to do but held back? As the saying goes, try it - you might like it. Take dancing lessons, learn to cook Hungarian Goulash, look at a problem as a challenge rather than an obstacle, write that book, map out that dream vacation, book a whole day at a spa with a friend, learn to play golf or take up chess. Enjoy, share, but most of all, be your creative self.

Beach Walk

by Lauraine Alberetti Lombara

Walking the beach very early on a summer morning, there is a solid, inky blue sky, slowly

creeping toward the coast and turning a paler blue. Not a cloud in view - an attic sky, an

unretrievable day, a consecrated day. The cool water is calm, gently lapping the shore and I 

am having a transcendent beginning as I make my way. I am the sole human; only the 

shore birds are sharing the open expanse of sand and sky.

The quiet is welcome...a time to think and enjoy nature - the sea, sky, birds, dunes and 

trees.  Far out on the water, there is one lobster boat gliding toward the pots and two 

sailboats trying to catch some wind.

In a few hours, the beach will be filled. Summer is short and winter is long.  The need for 

sun and sand is appealing and restorative for those of us living in the Northeast.  I find a 

few small stones, one tiny piece of the elusive blue beach glass and an interesting shard of 

pottery.  All enough to carry in my hands; treasures to add to my collections.

The Someday Rooms

by Beth Alexander Walsh

For several years they were a blank canvas. Two rooms of unpainted plaster walls and plywood flooring along with a small bath missing all its fixtures. These were the someday rooms. The rooms that would be finished as soon as the rest of the house was finished. No small task given that the job fell to my husband after work and on weekends.

When I got pregnant with our first child, our someday rooms were still on the back burner. Installing stair railings and a kitchen floor made much more sense and we already had a not-quite finished room close to our bedroom that was perfectly fine for our newborn. She was unaware of the lack of décor. When our daughter turned six months old, I found out I was expecting again. Our someday had a timetable; nine months.

The walls were painted and a bathtub installed to bathe small children. The carpet was laid a few weeks before my due date. My husband created built in desks and shelved alcoves in each room for books to be collected and homework to be done someday in the future. Before the cribs were moved into each room, I put giant Sesame Street stickers on my one-year old’s wall along with a giant border strip of the alphabet, while her newborn sister received Muppet Babies on her wall. The girls enjoyed their solitary space until baby brother was born. Bunk beds were set up for the girls and our son enjoyed his bedroom in which all things Toy Story ruled.

When the girls were preteen we became acutely aware that they would each need their own space if we were all to survive their teen years. Our basement, which was earmarked to someday become a recreation room with a bar and sauna, was framed for a bedroom and bath for our first born. She loved having her own floor away from siblings and annoying parents.  When the girls left for college, I would occasionally go and sit in their rooms; seemingly in suspended animation waiting for their occupant to return. When our oldest moved to China, our now teenage son wasted no time in moving his belongings to the basement, effectively putting two floors of distance between us and him.

For the first time in twenty-five years we had an empty room that would someday become a guest room, and I got to remake that room to suit me. The alcove became a walk-in closet and the wall color and bedding were of my choosing. A painting that I had purchased years ago came out of storage and a beautiful bureau built by my husband now had a home devoid of nail polish and the drinking glasses of the former residents. The room was immaculate and ready for guests.

Recently my oldest stayed with us for a few weeks while she was transitioning from the west coast to the east coast. In less than twenty-four hours there were clothes on the floor and a perpetually unmade bed reminiscent of the last time she stayed with us. The clutter finally left with her move to New York and the room restored to its pristine state but I hope that someday she will soon be back. I think I prefer that lived in look.