By Shulamis Stern

 

When I was in ninth and tenth grade, I was in dance. I loved it. It made me feel alive. I felt the music coursing through my veins as I spun and twirled in a visual rendition of the melody. It was as if my form was a central instrument setting the rhythm for the rest of the song. It wasn’t only the movement, it was the creative coordination of body and beat that satisfied my creative inclination.

 

Then eleventh grade came. I switched to drama. I was a natural. I could step into any part and become the person I was acting. The more I unshackled my imagination, the better I acted my part. It was both invigorating and liberating.

 

Twelfth grade was time to try something new again. Scenery. Now, I was never one to color in the lines. When I was in first grade, my teacher chastised me for my messy artwork. So for the rest of the year, I decorated my coloring sheets with polka dots in order to circumvent the constraints of the lines. As a senior in high school, I was given several huge blank canvases that would be the backdrop of the production. No lines. Permission to create granted. I dumped buckets of paint in all different patterns, adjusted the colors with paintbrushes of all sizes, and marveled as a dense forest, a bustling town square, and a medieval castle emerged.

 

After high school, I wrote my first book. It was a creative masterpiece full of memorable characters that you wished you actually knew. It was a historical fiction romanticizing the early years of Yiddishkeit in America when you would take the trolley to yeshivah, have seltzer delivered to your door, and you could go on all the rides at the fair for a nickel. (Well, maybe I never actually wrote this book, but I did dream about doing it; I just never got around to putting my dreams on paper.)

 

When I got married, my kitchen became my creative laboratory. I concocted all sorts of delicacies. I percolated distinct blends and brews. I arranged color, texture, and taste in delectable, mouthwatering designs. Every plate begged award-winning candidacy for its dual appeal to both sight and palate. I was proud to consider myself a master epicurean chef.

 

And then I became a mother. I learned to find delight in scrambled eggs and peanut butter sandwiches. Just going near a book would make me fall asleep, let alone writing one. I continued painting of a different sort: washable fingerpaint, being mindful of the walls. Drama was when Sara got a bigger piece of cake than Devora (or more recently, when everyone in the whole class already got the newest shade of Alo scrunchie before I got to the store). Dance entailed gracefully tiptoeing into a room of sleeping kids to put the laundry away. In short, my prior creative outlets came to a sudden screeching halt, mercilessly ejecting me from my post.

 

At first, I didn’t recognize it. I became so busy with everyday life that I didn’t feel the void. Between working, shopping, cleaning, and mothering, there was little time left to think, let alone dabble in some creative outlet. I was happy. Somewhere in my subconscious, I still defined myself by my previous creative accomplishments. But at some point, I realized that none of my neighbors or newfound friends knew anything about that side of my personality. I was no longer dance head or drama queen. I was just another mom on the block. It was a strange realization. It was like waking up one morning and seeing a different face staring back at you in the mirror. Creative Me seemed to be a relic of the past. Or was it?

 

As that was not a husband sort of discussion to have (unless I wanted to get markers and a coloring book for my next birthday), I allotted some time for thoughtful introspection by purposefully opting to take Route 9 to work, ignoring protests from Waze.

 

And so, I thought.

 

I thought about my children’s bikes. Bikes are expensive. But with five little boys underfoot, there’s much serenity in giving each their own set of wheels to spin instead of letting them spin mine. But I needed price and practical to meet, so I’d gone on a hunt. I hunted discarded bikes. I collected them. I mixed-and-matched parts. I let each son choose the color that he wanted his bike to be and supplied the spray paint to do the job. Mission accomplished. Five boys, five bikes, and as a side benefit, I never had to worry about their bikes getting mixed up with the neighbors’.

 

I thought about the summer that the forest behind my house was turned into a mountain of mulch in preparation for another expansion of the development I lived in. My kids were devastated. The forest was their playground. They climbed the branches, played hide-and-seek between the trees, collected leaves and pinecones. They were sad to see it go. But then I took out our sleds, and my kids spent the next couple of weeks sledding down the mulch mountain smothered in sunscreen and spraying each other with the hose as they sled down. They felt lucky that their forest was the one chosen to be leveled.

 

I thought about the time I’d spent hours planning an outdoor outing, making lunches and snacks for the day, packing the car, making sure everyone used the bathroom one last time, buckling everyone’s seatbelt, rearranging the seating to keep certain children out of reach from each other, buckling everyone’s seatbelt again, and pulling away from the house (after one more last time bathroom use) to the sound of thunder and lightning that apparently fell out of the weather forecast’s radar. So we had a great time using our pillows and blankets to build castles and fortresses in my basement. We turned off all of the lights in the house and played by candlelight for added effect.  And my kids went to sleep that night wondering why we had to pack up the car if we were going on a trip to our own basement.

 

I thought about all the times that I cooked can-I-have-a-second-helping suppers to the chorus of “Ma, there’s nothing to eat in this house” playing in the background.

 

I thought about the thrill and sense of accomplishment that I experienced in each of those scenarios and many others as well. I realized that life has given me ample space to exercise my creativity. From living on a tight budget, in tight quarters, with tight time constraints, to navigating family responsibilities, social obligations, and a myriad of other duties, there’s abundant room to exercise creative solutions of every sort. I’m still dancing. I’m still painting. I’m still writing. I’m still acting. (And yes, I’m still cooking.) But it’s taken on a different form of expression.

 

Dance is how I choose to go about my day because even though I’m no longer on stage, I’m still that central instrument setting the rhythm for the rest of the song. If I drag my feet or step out of beat, my whole crew will follow my lead. Sometimes I dance slow and sometimes fast. Sometimes it’s cheery and upbeat, and other times it’s quite the opposite. Sometimes I have the luxury of dancing to my own tune. Other times I have to dance to someone else’s tune, but even then, I determine the rhythm.

 

My home is my canvas; I try to paint it in hues of happiness. That requires mixing different colors to achieve the perfect shade. Sometimes it also requires adding different elements to the paint to add character and depth.

 

My children’s childhood is the book I’m writing. The story often takes unsuspected turns that aren’t in my control, but I do control whether each chapter ends on a positive note. Sometimes I have to dig deeply to find the inspiration to inventively transform certain chapters, but that’s always up to me because I’m the main character.

 

To accomplish all that, innovative and resourceful have become my new creative. But it isn’t really new. It’s just a real-life application of my previous creativity.

 

So now, when my bank account reflects my summer expenses, the start of school is far away, and my kids still need entertainment, my creative energies are supercharged. But I think that I already found a solution to the no-more-money-to-spend-but-need-entertainment problem:

 

Anyone want to join me for some rugged camping on a homemade floating tepee in the middle of Lake George?