Day 6 of Creative Camp

Day 6 of taking myself to Creative Camp.

I’m a creative director trying to make creativity feel irresistible again, so this summer I’m embarking on 30 fun-sized creative adventures. And you're invited to join me!

My 8 year old has dubbed herself co-counselor.

Since Day 1, she's been running her own junior division of Creative Camp: doing her own prompts (sometimes 2-3x/day), singing, tap dancing through the house in her jellies, filling the kitchen table with watercolor love notes.

She made camp flyers inviting the neighborhood to our house. Look at that tagline: “Make today your Day 1.”

Stop. I've created a copywriter.

And now my co-counselor has taken over today's random prompt pull. You know the rules. I have no choice but to YES AND! the situation. Today's prompt:

Perform.
Fabric.
Wild Card.

Only a wee bit excited about this one.

Wild Card means your choice. So obviously we choose musical puppet show. Duh. We're only a house full of theater kids.

This sends us on a journey through the house to find puppets, stuffies, and anyone with theatrical potential. (Pour one out for the stuffies of once upon a time. We've been slowly organizing some of her little-kid toys and she is squealing with delight to be reacquainted with Chompy and Frida and Little Pippers.)

That stack of WHY DO WE STILL HAVE THIS? I was just shaking my fist at last week is now a treasure chest of WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN! she's jumping into like a pile of leaves.

Little kid clutter has become a cast of characters. Creative Camp is starting to do callbacks and this is one of them:

Creativity is as simple as looking at what’s already here with new eyes.

And now she's doing it, too.

This is, as they say, what it's all about.

Next, we sit down for theater kid research.

Obviously, we start with the OG puppet musical number, "The Lonely Goatherd," from The Sound of Music. (Avenue Q will have to wait.) But she's most excited about Seussical, which she's performing in this summer.

So we cast the production in true commitment to the YES AND! bit: Lambchop as the Cat in the Hat, a giant oversized doppelgänger puppet of me as Jojo. (Throwback to the days of Awkward Marketing, when my 8-year-old was still a zero-year-old and also playing with me behind the scenes. )

We dust the cobwebs off ye ol’ green screen and put on a show: our own screen-free evening entertainment.

And, for a second, time slows down.

I take a step back and experience a rare mom moment of being proud of myself AS SOMETHING IS HAPPENING instead of haranguing myself about something I COULD be doing better.

I’m so glad we made this.

I’m so glad we’ll have these camp memories.

We will NOT always be giggling with her stuffies behind the living room couch.

OMG.

Every damn moment of parenting is an act of creativity. This is art. I am here. Wow.

Afterward, we sat down for a lil’ post-production praxis. Because even though her face won’t be in this video, she is still in it.

We talk about what I'm going to share. Why I don’t show her face online anymore. Why I’m careful about how much of her life becomes part of my story here.

She has opinions about this, by the way. Big ones. She would LOVE to be on the Internet more.

I'm asking her to trust me that one day she may not feel the same way. But I’m also asking myself to trust her enough to include her in the conversation.

So I tell her what I'm thinking and she helps me shape the story.

(I don’t always know if I’m getting this right but I know I want to walk alongside her, not around her. Not over her, with her.)

This is part of the creative practice, too.

Parenting is a creative practice.

And creativity is contagious.

So, pass it on.

Welcome to camp.