photo by Alessandra Cave

All I have to do is watch my three-year-old daughter for a matter of minutes to be reminded of how free we all were when we came into this life. She makes up impromptu songs and sings them out when we walk down the street, oblivious that anyone else can hear her or that she should care if they can. She runs when she wants to run, dances when she wants to dance, no matter how fast or slow everyone around her is traveling. She wails in despair when despair strikes. She has mastered the arm-cross as a gesture of utter defiance and protest, and pairs it with feet rooted and unmoving whenever she is taking a stand. Joy and delight animate her whole body and burst from her lips and limbs every day.

And so were we, in the beginning.

Part of growing up in civilized society is learning to follow the rules. The more frightened the society, the more rules there are. “But I like to hit,” my daughter cries.

And there’s the rub.

Most of us would agree that we’d rather not live in a world in which everyone who wants to hit someone else does so. Some of the rules are more necessary than others, some serve us better than others. The truth is, by the time we have No Hitting along with the hundreds of mores that follow, all the way to “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” we have very little room left in which to maneuver. Very little freedom, and a whole lot of self-consciousness and self-containment.

Creativity is wild, not tame, and it is generally unwilling to be tidily contained. Those of us who endeavors to do creative work of any kind are likely to feel that wild creativity rattling the cages of all the parts of ourselves that we sent down to the basement long ago. We have our past selves, and our present selves. The eyes that have delighted in bubbles and fireworks and wept tears of heartbreak and loss. The parts we’ve given full voice to and the parts we’ve muffled or silenced.

The rich, complicated truth of who we are is big enough to hold them all, but welcoming them can be daunting and uncertain, as we regard our wilder parts like criminals up for parole. We think perhaps they have been locked up for Good Reason, but more and more we suspect we can’t live without them another minute. There is untold comfort and wisdom in the company of others who are on this same journey.

You can run, they remind us.
You can sing and dance and wail and protest and scream in delight.
You can be free.

Integrate Retreat in the Rockies from Jen Lee on Vimeo.

Jen Lee is a regular performer in New York City’s storytelling scene, including The Moth Mainstage. She is hosting the upcoming Integrate Retreat in the Rockies, which is one part storytelling and one part soulcare, and she teaches at Squam Art Workshops. Jen runs a blog and podcast for people doing creative work at jenlee.net. You can follow her on Twitter.