An Excerpt from Wild Women, Wild Voices
by Judy Reeves
Remember when you were five years old and didn’t know you “couldn’t” sing? (I write this for me, the girl who dreamed of growing up to be a singer, the one who couldn’t carry a tune even if she had a peach basket.) Remember when you were given paints and a piece of paper and you just sat right down and made a picture? And you liked it. You liked the doing of it, and you liked the picture you created as well. You gave it away as a gift and felt good doing that, too.
For this Exploration, let’s make a map. Instead of just listing specific creative expressions, throw words describing them all over the page. Use different-colored pens; make a map bright with wild statements, words, or images. Remember, we’re not talking Art, with a capital A here; we’re talking creative expressions that brought pleasure, that were fun to do or to make. Start with the first thing you remember — whether it’s from when you were a child or something you did two days ago — and then fling the memories down in phrases as they come to you.
Here’s a partial list, which I translated from my map:
When I pretended I could play the ukulele
The time I roller-skated like a dancer to “Lean on Me”
The collage I made at the women’s retreat
Writing about my father and me looking at our big green atlas
Dancing the two-step with R. on the cruise
Painting my bedroom walls cranberry
Creating altars for the Wild Women writing workshops
Include at least fifteen or twenty instances when you felt good in the process of being creative. This map making, like any other form of creativity, will become more fluid if you don’t try to think of the “right” expression but instead are open to any expression. Don’t judge. Just remember, write it down, and celebrate your wild, creative nature.
What to do with the map after you’ve finished? First of all, keep it close by so you can add to it. The more you see on your map, and the more varied the statements are, the more you may realize what a creative individual you are. There is no one else in all creation like you. Think of that!
As you glance over your map, the idea may come to you of writing a personal narrative essay about a particular experience, what you discovered about yourself or the world and how it changed you. Or maybe the list itself has the makings of a story or a poem. Creating the map might remind you of some creative activity or expression you loved but haven’t given much time to lately. Maybe the time to take it up again is now.
“My first felony — I took up with Poetry,” wrote Wild Woman Sandra Cisneros. We are creative outlaws, all of us.
From the book Wild Women, Wild Voices. © Copyright 2015 by Judy Reeves. Printed with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com.