The passion for creation pours through humans in such vastly different ways, and each shape it takes on fills a different void.
Growing up, books littered the shelves of my childhood home, their spine-bound bodies found lying atop each other next to my bed, on the living room coffee table or on the towel rack in the bathroom, each one stored wherever I set it down last. Opening the cover, my fingers gently tapped on the sides of the pages while I read, as if punching in a code that would awaken an inter-dimensional portal, leading to whatever story the inked letters sang the tune of. Each book I devoured left a small imprint on my mind, new vocabulary learned, new scenarios imagined, new possibilities realized.
Writing arrived shortly after, the swirling clouds of thought collecting, growing heavy enough to rain characters, plotlines, twists and grand finales down with the soft scratch of cylindrical granite over the paper of a blue spiral notebook. Many works-in-progress remained just that, their last rocks never upturned to reveal their ending, a reminder of the casualties that accompany the creative process. The prose mirrored life, twisting and changing as my mind matured, childish fantasies growing emotional depth and real-life complications, though shimmers of youthful hope and romance always shone through the small gaps in between the window blinds.
The fire never contained, hands-on, something-from-nothing creativity itching underneath my skin, and all of a sudden, a thin, aluminum, crochet hook bounced around my fingers, tracing a push-and-pull dance with the tightly spun fibers, pulling into different shapes and sizes. The countless hours, unforgiving tangles and tears shed over failed projects watered a seed of patience, slowly nurturing it with the gentle light of a bright smile every time a blanket row was successfully added, or a tapestry pattern sprang to life on the panel. Yarned decor spread around my room like ivy over an abandoned brick wall, scrap pieces cut off of finishing knots always found in my wake like some sort of messy aura.
Though soundtracking all of the creativity I had ever dabbled in was music, a form in itself. Each melody being an escape from reality, yet an opportunity to feel fully understood by both words and background noise, made a profound impact on how I viewed the idea of art, as this could be nothing but. The tips of young fingers tracked a number of routes across thin white and black pieces of the large piano, later to be replaced by a loud, amplified bass guitar, every genre of sound woven into the song of my life’s artistic expression.