What’s Your Earliest Creative Memory?

What creative memory do you have from your early childhood? I don’t just mean artistic things. Sure, finger painting counts… but how about writing stories or songs? Building forts or making mud pies? Throwing tea parties? Racing matchbox cars? Putting on plays or puppet shows?

Often, once we start going to school, these creative inclinations get forgotten or pushed aside in favor of book learning and academia. And once we hit adulthood, our minds and our time are consumed with paying the bills and other daily responsibilities. Creative endeavors fall by the wayside, becoming nothing more than memory.

But here’s an interesting thought. What if your earliest creative memory could spark something new in you today? Whatever it is you enjoyed doing as a kid, what if you found a correlation to that in your current season?

Let me explain with a personal example…

Believe it or not, I never aspired to be an artist when I grew up. In fact, it wasn’t until my thirties that I discovered a way to pull the word pictures out of my head and get them on paper. And it’s been in my forties that I’ve starting diving into illustration. But I do have memories of doing those things before I ever started school.

I was a precocious reader, having picked up the skill at age three, and I started writing pretty quickly after that. My earliest creative memory is sitting at the kitchen table with a pad of lined paper, writing short (paragraph-length) stories and drawing pictures to go along with them. We also had an old Leading Edge computer, which my Dad bought the year I was born, so I grew up playing old school games like Agent USA, Go to the Head of the Class, and KidWriter. That last one was perhaps my favorite! It had a database of objects you could use to build a picture, and space to write a story about the scene you created. I have no memory of what I wrote about or created – but I do remember how much joy I found in doing it!

Now here it is several decades later, and I’m once again drawing “pictures” and writing about them. There were a lot of years in between when I didn’t feel creative at all, never mind artistic. But one day, I walked around a bend (metaphorically speaking) and discovered a nudge into the world of hand lettering. I’ve always thought in word pictures—complete with fonts and layouts and colors—but I never considered trying to put them down on paper. Then all of a sudden, God allowed me to see the possibilities, and I rediscovered the joy of writing and drawing that had so consumed me as a child.

Here’s the point.

This is a fun trip down memory lane, at least for me, but I hope it’s also an encouragement for you. You can be creative! Take some time to daydream, and remember what you used to enjoy doing as a kid. How could you fit even one small aspect of that activity into your life today?

• Finger painting? Doodle with colored pencils or buy a fun coloring book.
• Throwing tea parties for your dolls? Invite some friends over for an afternoon tea.
• Racing matchbox cars? Visit a hobby store and ask about RC cars or planes.
• Writing stories? Try writing something 10 minutes a day, just for yourself.
• Making mud pies or playing restaurant? Bake something purely for fun, and share it with a friend.
• Building forts? Try building something fun with Legos.
• Picking wildflowers? Go find some wildflowers and make a pretty arrangement!

I’m sure you can be creative enough to figure out some more connections. I’d love to hear what you come up with!

What’s your earliest creative memory? Do you still enjoy that activity today?