It was April of 2020 when the peripheral pressures of the pandemic with its stay-at-home orders, distance learning, and perpetual fear-stoking news cycle finally did me in. Simultaneously—weeks of rain that kept us indoors.
After exhausting three other activities in the span of ten minutes, I asked my boys, “do you want to paint?”
Pre-pandemic Ruthie would have set easels up outside, with smocks, and individual paint cups.
Pandemic Ruthie taped together flattened cardboard boxes from Amazon subscribe & save deliveries until they covered the living room floor. Pandemic Ruthie filled muffin trays full of paint and didn’t bat an eye when stray color ended up on the white walls.
I didn’t even realize how tightly wound I had become. How freeing it felt to swirl globs of paint around on cardboard. How satisfying it was to make a mess.
The art was for them, but it was also for me.
How many times have I thought that getting unstuck was about being more tidy, more pulled together, more curated when actually it was making a mess that reminded me to enjoy the process and hold the outcome loosely.
The boundaries of cardboard became our safe space to lean into the chaos, and in the mess we found the magic: Playfulness. Joy. Wonder. Freedom.
By grace, we’re not stuck.
Make a mess to release your creativity. Lay down perfect. Pick up playful.
Make a mess to find beauty in an unexpected place. Lay down expectations. Pick up wonder.
Make a mess as part of moving forward. Lay down control. Pick up freedom.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Make A Mess".