create something even if you think it sucks

MINDFULLY MENDING MARCH SUGGESTION: create something even if you think it sucks. 

Kids are creative. They make stuff up. The play with cardboard boxes. They scribble with markers. They stick random stickers all over a paper and call it art. 

One of my favourite toys in daycare was an invisible suitcase that held everything you could ever dream of. When we wanted to play with dolls, we pulled invisible dolls out of our invisible suitcase and played with them. Our suitcase held invisible fire trucks, invisible art supplies ... I forget what else was in it. But basically whatever we wanted to imaginarily play with, we had access to it. 

When I was 8, my best friend Heather and I spent an entire weekend at her cottage riding wild horses across the rocky beach. Our "horses" we big sticks we found in the woods. 

I was privileged to take lessons in piano, violin, recorder, flute, guitar, singing, ballet, jazz, tap, musical theatre, and drums. I kept notebooks full of terribly written stories and lame poems. I developed secret codes (that I still use to write my journal hee hee). I drew pictures. Made collages. Hand made every Christmas present I ever made including tiny origami earrings. 

Then we "grow up" which really means we aged, and creativity became frivolous. Work and families and paying bills and trying to pretend that we know how to keep it all together when really we don't know what the hell we are doing. 

We call each other "artsy" in a way that is half joking, half insulting, half envy. (Math isn't my specialty)

Let's reclaim our creativity! Let's make things. Let's cook and bake and sing and dance and learn a new instrument or pick up and old one. Let's try scrap booking, journaling, doodling, colouring a colouring book, macrame, knitting, crocheting, writing embarrassing poetry while sitting in a cafe, trying different colours of paint on the walls, dancing alone in the kitchen or taking a dance class, play games, go swimming, a pottery class, buy air drying clay from the dollar store, look up art by Barbara Reid and try making pictures out of plasticine, look up any artist and imitate their work, or any other thing you can possibly think of. 

As adults we call them "hobbies" or "self care activities" ... can we reclaim the word "creative" and wear it like a badge of honour?!????!???

I CREATE THINGS! I create terrible crocheted slippers that you can't get your foot into. And wonky songs on my guitar. And embarrassing poems. And this attempt at writing and drawing. And my partner and I once built a dollhouse!

I make. I try. I fail. I laugh at myself a lot. I blush. And I do it anyway. 

Forget starting a hobby. Just make something. Who cares what it is. Just grab things and make them into different things. The result doesn't matter. Who cares what it looks like? You don't even have to show anyone. Just make make make make make. 

I dare you. 

Be kind,

To yourself too,

xo

*All images are property of Fox Tales Art

**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com for inquiries and browse some options at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/FoxTalesByKira 

(Purchasing directly by email, even if the piece is on etsy, saves both of us money and can involve a negotiation in size and in price)

#bopo #bodypositive #mindfulness #selfcare #selfcompassion #notachoice #FoxTalesArtMindfullyMendingMarch  #edawareness #edadvocate #ed #eatingdisorder #edrecovery #recovery #bopo #art #artist #torontoart #torontoartist