creativity

I lost a dear friend last weekend. Because it was unexpected, many of her friends are still reeling. But we came together last week, not for a service exactly, but a gathering of sorts, a service before the service.

While there, what struck me most was, while I knew very few people, I wasn’t the only one. Everyone there, it seemed, didn’t know anybody else. This beautiful person had touched so many lives — and most of them in random ways. So-and-so met so-and-so on eHarmony or in a class, and that someone knew a neighbor of Amy’s who turned out to be somebody else’s realtor. And so it went. I met Amy several years ago at a self-improvement workshop that neither of us particularly cared for. We joked that the best thing to come out of it had been our friendship. The assortment of people that arrived last Tuesday may not have known each other, but it all led back to Amy.

Her short-time love (that they weren’t yet married is just a technicality in my book) spoke of two words Amy associated with herself — creativity and connection. Someone else spoke about how, upon hearing the news, her best friend was prompted to say “I love you” to her for the first time in over twenty years. I had similar experiences. Friends, those I see all the time and those I hadn’t heard from in months or years, reached out to me. Connections are important. The lesson I left with is to tell the people you care about that they matter.

On the way home, another good friend of Amy’s mentioned that Amy’s easel was still at his house. They had taken an art class together. Amy had gotten bored. She didn’t have the attention span for it. He, on the other hand, was on to something. He showed me some paintings on his phone. They were good.

As a creative person myself, I feel certain that Amy has left it to me to encourage him. This is a role I gladly accept. I think everyone has the potential to be creative or do something that makes a difference, something they feel passionate about. We differ only in how much we’ve actualized or stifled this natural urge.

When I considered writing this blog, I hesitated. Was it selfish of me to write about something so personal? About losing a person most of my readers don’t even know? And then I remembered: that’s the magic of writing. When done well, it makes you feel. There’s something in it that the reader can relate to. So, it doesn’t really matter if you knew Amy or not. I write what’s personal to me and you can connect to it through something personal to you. Magic.

And so, I find that this giving friend of mine keeps on giving. And I simply pass on the message. Creativity and connection. Do with that what you will.

I discovered recently that Frankie is timid around men. And he doesn’t like the smell of fish. As a result, he really tries to avoid men who smell like fish. So, you’d think he’d be less than thrilled to spend a recent morning on the Jacksonville Beach pier, right? Wrong. He was beside himself.

I walked him there in my power chair to meet a couple of friends one weekday morning. He was tugging at the leash as soon as we turned south instead of north. He didn’t care where we were going. Just that we’d never been there before. When we reached the paved walkway next to the dunes, his pace quickened and he weaved back and forth, trying to take in all the strange scents simultaneously. Gulls called overhead, people whizzed by on bikes and rollerblades and the breeze carried in the smell of salt and Tropicana off the beach.

Dogs are allowed on the pier if they’re service dogs. Frankie is enrolled in classes with a trainer who can certify him as such, so technically, it wasn’t a lie. Frankie is a service dog-in-training now. But I have to admit, little Frankie looks nothing like those well-behaved helpers, particularly bounding ahead of the wheelchair with no special vest and barking at birds.

He was so excited that even being approached by smelly men with coolers full of fish didn’t faze him for long. After our outing, his little legs carried him most of the way home, probably running on pure adrenaline.

Later that week, my writing coach gave us a suggestion that rang especially true. She said – do something new. As writers, we need to fill the creative well with new images, scents and tastes so that we can call these up in our writing, keeping things from sounding stale or cliche.

And non-writers need this mental stimulation too. Are you like me, always ordering the same thing off the menu? Mix it up! Try something different. Or better yet, go to a restaurant you’ve never been to before. Take in a museum exhibit on your lunch hour. Or just drive a different way to work. Our lives are so filled with routine that it’s easy to get stuck in a rut.

Remembering this advice, I took Frankie to the park the following week. We were rewarded when a mama duck and at least seven little ducklings crossed our path. True, Frankie was excited enough just by the Mallards waddling by, but I was happy to see the babies. We sat for a long time in the butterfly garden, Frankie attempting to dig in the mulch while I watched a Swallowtail flutter around. It was calming and it broke routine. That butterfly and those ducklings are now deep in the well of my creative subconscious just waiting to be called on. And Frankie’s happy. To him I’m just keeping it interesting.

Amy F. Quincy Author/Freelance Writer

Tag

Remembering Amy

Keeping It Interesting