Happy Birthday Mama! You always say a blogpost is the best gift we can get you, and since I can't be there this weekend for your birthday, I figured this might be the next best thing ;)
I think I'll start with something that kind of relates to Gordon, but is also a compliment to Mommy. Obviously, Gordon is not the most creative person. This is pretty obvious in basically every aspect of his life. The way he dresses, the way he lives, the way he looks at life, almost all are done with an analytical outlook. That's fine, many of his best qualities are because of that way of thinking, but it is interesting to note that because of his analytical nature, he has very few outlets. He plays DnD, chess, and I think he watches a LOT of Youtube. I would say one of his only creative outlets is baking, and lets be honest, that makes perfect sense as baking is a skill that requires reading instructions and following them closely to get a desired result.
Anyway, this all relates back to Mommy because in the end, we kids are creative because of her. I mean, I don't know if I really realized this to the full extent until I dated Gordon, but like, I am VERY creative minded. Most of the money I spend (not out of necessity) is on art, art books, posters, Comic Con (where I spend more money off art) etc. I LOVE looking at things other people have created that speak to me. Music Education is obviously a very creative major, but even just listening to music is a very creative pursuit that, I now see, is a gift given to us by a creative mother. Not to bring up Gordon again, but I'm going to bring him up again. Right now he is taking a Music 101 class, and earlier this semester he asked me what the "color" of a piece means. Immediately I jumped into the descriptions of dark vs light, texture, and mood of a piece. I even played him recordings from carnival of the animals, the planets etc. But what he had expected, coming from the analytical view, was a list of specific figures, dynamics, and articulations that would help him understand what color a piece was that would work for any piece in any time for the rest of his life. It was hard to break the news to him that there ISN'T one right answer, but instead it is completely up to the listener and their interpretation of the piece. But that skill is something that is learned - to connect colors, moods, imaginations, scenes, vistas, movements with something that you hear. When I uses the word choclatey to describe a section played by the strings, you better believe Gordon looked at me confused. But have you ever thought about how something you hear could be "chocolatey." Of course thinking about it now, just watch the movie Chocolat and basically you will understand :) Even just the ability to TALK about music is an art. Gordon wanted one answer, and if I heard "The Aquarium" from Carnival of the Animals different than he did, he thought he was WRONG to hear a shark in the water while I heard a teaming reef with a single shell falling from the world above. I don't think I have ever thought about how when talking about music, it is this art of sharing ideas without discounting others opinions on what they heard.
Another aspect of creativity I was touching on before was how it spills into my free time. As mentioned above, Gordon has very few outlets, some of which coincide, some of which do not. Whenever I have free time, basically the only things I want to do are play music or draw. I mean, I always want to watch TV and play video games, but you can only do so much of that before you inevitably get bored. But drawing, or playing guitar, I can literally do those two things for hours at a time. Sundays are some of my favorite days of the week because I have time to release all these creative ideas I've been holding in. What a gift it is to find joy in something simple as a pencil and paper, or in an instrument of finely crafted wood.
Something that just came to my mind and might relate to this whole idea is how Mommy taught us these ways of living from the time we were young. I'm taking a multi-cultural education class that interestingly focuses a lot on how children build thought processes. This is mostly because we talk about how societal norms can heavily effect how children learn and act in the classroom and how we as teachers need to be aware of these social constructs to intervene when a negative social connotation or norm enters our classroom. But it also reminds me how free children are, how open their minds are to everything, how naturally creative they are. They want to try everything, do everything, they have no fear of right and wrong, they simply are. I mean Jesus was really onto something when he said we need to become as little children, because truly they are simply themselves. I think that is something very unique to our family. Because we are creative, we have this child-like joy and freedom when it comes to certain subjects, but also just in the way we carry ourselves through life. Mommy and Daddy did a really great job of letting us be who we wanted to be, and because of that, we are more free than I would say a lot of people our age. Free from a lot of mental health issues that come about from pressures to be things we are not, and we are stronger than a lot of people around us because within that freedom, we know what lines we never have and never will cross. Anyway, I don't know if that makes any sense, but it builds this happiness and beauty into everyday life that others might find harder to see and acknowledge.
Don't know if that makes any sense, but dating someone who was raised by two engineers makes these things very present in my mind. Of course, there is a limit to creativity. Gordon invited me to go to a BYU Crosstalk. If that name wasn't ambiguous enough to denote what kind of concert it was, I'll just tell you that it was a modern music concert. I wasn't even surprised when I walked into performance space to find a giant canvas in the front with cups of paint everywhere. I tried to prepare Gordon for what weird creations he was going to hear, but nothing could've told him there is a limit to creativity better than the last piece where this kid pranced around the stage while painting on himself for a good 10 minutes to this weirdo techno-music he had thrown up in garage band :D
Anyway, those are just a few thoughts I had on your birthday mama. Thanks so much for helping us see the beauty in the world, from a beautiful motif in a soundtrack to enjoying the sunset on a summer day :) Love you mama! And Happy Birthday!
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