Writing and painting are one and the same

I believe that we all have a flicker or a spark of creativity in us. How they ignite and burn is unique to each of us. For me, it started with a box of Crayola crayons that had more colours than I knew existed (with an awestruck-ness for the gold one which made perfect stars). I drew bears and flower-filled landscapes without a care in the world. Until cares did enter my world, and I found myself picking up those colours less and less. Until eventually not at all.

I think it happens when those cares lure us into believing things that are not true. Things that dampen the imagination, chase away creativity and hide dreams. The blessing is that creativity always finds her way back to us. Usually through a barely open window or a slightly ajar door. With cracks just big enough to sneak through. That’s what happened to me. Only this time, she didn’t come with colours, she came with words. Lots and lots of words. Each one strung together for a story. A sweet middle grade story. One that pulled at my heart strings, forced the dust off my imagination, and awakened dreams again. And with those words came characters, placed on pages for others to see and know.

In those years as a writer, I chased stories with the force of a Nor’easter. But something was always missing…

Until one day. That still, small voice whispered “colours.”

My watercolour pencils had been placed in my keepsake box more than twenty years before. A place for things with which I cannot part, but for which there is no purpose anymore. Months passed and I did not pull them out. Until one day when that whisper grew into a shout, and so I listened. And when I did, magic happened. Not because what I painted was worthy of the paper it had been brushed on, but because of how it made me feel. Magic. Soul-filling magic. Which is how it came to be that I traded my words for brushes. And I have never looked back.  

What that journey has taught me is this…

- Those “cares” that we let preoccupy us, they are WAY less important than we think;

- What we view as a “detour” isn’t really a detour at all! We’re learning, discovering and growing in that time for reasons we don’t yet know;

- In that time of “detouring”, we become the person we need to be for the creative magic to happen; and lastly,

-Writing and painting are one and the same! So the “detour” paid off! Because they both create (with a blank page and blank canvas, a pen stroke and brush stroke, words and paint) something beautiful that did not exist before.