Don’t worry Joanna, written on the front cover of my 1994 diary was also a confession of my deep love for Nadine Weaver and I think it’s safe to say it’s in the past! Haha
I was sitting in bed a few days ago scribbling away in one of my new journals and I just kept looking up at a shelf in my bedroom with a bag that contains every diary I’ve had since I was about 13. It’s weird to open a page of a diary and be right back there remembering the details of when you wrote it. The small things that you think are lost your memory calls to place. I could oddly find the “feeling” place of that diary and I could remember the blue bedspread I sat on to write it, the school timetable I had blue-tacked to the wall to map out my lessons ( it was all colour coded of course ) and the oversized file I would drag to school everyday. The table next to my bed, the position and layout of my old room and the hundred and one imaginary places I had created to escape. My deep love for Joanna Billiness and Nadine Weaver aside, it’s no secret that school was not a fun time for me. It was years before I learned that being different is a strength and that finding strength in that is a life lesson I would never take back.
The sanctuary of my imagination is what got me through that time; and because of that time I never lost the ability to play, the ability to create, the ability to dream. Little did I know in those years I was building the foundations of the life I have now. I was imprinting within myself the building blocks of a creative life. I would lock myself away and play piano, draw, make, create, think. All of these things that I suppose were initially ways for me to occupy my mind have now become the most enjoyable part of my life experience. As an adult I create albums, I create paintings, I create “stuff”, I imagine, I dream and I think. I suppose in those years of solitude there were parts of me that didn’t grow up, with no one around me I didn’t have to. So part of me has always remained that creative child, that playful force and I love that about myself! I love that I still play, that I’m covered in paint, glue and lyrics on a regular basis. I love that when I see something beautiful or feel something powerful I want to create and make and mould.
I guess what I’m saying is that, after looking through my old diaries I never really took stock for how important my imagination is to me. How it began. How it exists today in my life. I hear people say all the time that “I’m not creative” or something similar and I think that’s impossible. We were all children once, we all played, we all did make believe, we were all giants and monsters and princesses and heroes and I think we would all be happier if we never let those parts of ourselves wither. If we could find within ourselves ways to know when to be the grown up and when to be the child. Doing things “just because”. Loving things just because. Doing someone a painting and not caring how good it is. Making someone a present out of a washing up liquid bottle and some pipe cleaners and FULLY enjoying yourself during the process! Being brave enough to be the imaginative, creative, inquisitive child within you.
Being brave enough to play.
Love and Crayons,
Ryan xxxx
