Every Child is an Artist

Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Pablo Picasso

What would it look like if we lived without inhibitions?  Here’s one glimpse:

The other night my (Tom’s) family and I were at some friends’ house for dinner and our two oldest children Lillian, 5, and Luke, 3, went down into their basement to play.  The next thing we heard was our children “rocking out” on our friends’ drum set and keyboard.   After a few minutes of listening all of us adults went downstairs to hear the “concert”.   It was a magical moment.  As we listened to their playing and singing, we all looked at each other in simple appreciation of our children’s uninhibited joy and exuberance.   They were having the best time.

As I’ve reflected on that night more and more I’ve realized how deeply I care at times about what other people think of me.   But my kids didn’t care at all that night what they looked like or sounded like.  They were simply having fun.  In my reflection, I realize how as we grow older we so often lose that sense of joy and pure wonder of the moment and fail to appreciate the good things and people around us.

Too often we have voices – from within and from without – creeping into our heads telling us not to “do this”, not to “act like that”, voices that inhibit our enthusiasm and our joy.  We often feel ashamed of our feelings, our passions and our gifts.  We become self-conscious and feel unworthy to share them.

My (Michael’s) sister-in-law Sue passed away right after Thanksgiving, somewhat suddenly and definitely shockingly.   She was so full of life and was always so vital.  At her memorial service I spoke of a family gathering one summer that exemplified her joy in life.  There was music in the background and the song “It’s Raining Men” started playing.   Sue, obviously loved the song, its energy and power, and just got up and started dancing to it.  We all looked at her with wonder and with appreciation for her uninhibited exuberance too.   It was at that point that my wife Kathy turned to one of her other sisters and joked,

It’s right now that Michael is thinking he married the wrong sister!

 Sue, never to her last day, lost her sense of joy and wonder at the goodness in life.  In fact, as she lay in the hospital, near her home in San Francisco, hooked up to every conceivable machine, tube and sensor, she whispered to her sisters by her side,

How did the 49’ers do in the last two games?

 It was one of her final words.  And she still hadn’t lost that joy and wonder.

Author and researcher Brené Brown writes about a 20-year old man who was part of a small group of college students that she was interviewing.

As a child this man had been a passionate artist.   But he winced as he described from an early age he could be happy if he could spend his life painting and drawing.  He said that one day he was in the kitchen with his dad and uncle.  His uncle pointed to a collection of his art that was plastered on a refrigerator and said jokingly to his father, “What?  You’re raising a faggot artist now?”  After that, he said, his father, who had always been neutral about his art, forbade him from taking classes.  Even his mother, who had always been so proud of his talent, agreed that it was “a little too girly”.  He told me that he had drawn a picture of his house the day before all of this happened, and to that day it was the last thing he had ever drawn.  That night I wept for him and for all of us who never got to see his work.  I think about him all the time and hope that he had reconnected with his art.  I know it is a tremendous loss for him, and I am equally positive that the world is missing out. 

Like Brené Brown, our hearts break when we think about those who have also been shamed into denying who they are or feel forced to be constrained or restrained from being their best selves.   Controlled.   Embarrassed.   Inhibited.   Guarded.   Self-conscious.   Shamed.  All are words that keep people from being who they have been born to be.

But we celebrate the children who haven’t lost their inhibitions yet and the adults who still know how to dance and laugh and play and are free to express who they are.   None of us should have the light in our souls taken away.