Chelsey Cosh's Blog: From Mind to Mouth - Posts Tagged "creativity"

I watched Toy Story last night and realized once again something that was inescapable when I first read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West .

Vantage point is everything.

As a toy's story, the film is an indictment of Sid, an alleged monster who tears apart and tortures toys. He has a sinister voice and menacing eyes. Pure evil.

But as Sid's story, Sid is not the villain but rather a fairly clever young boy who spends his time experimenting with machines and aerodynamics. No video games or television. He's interested in instruction manuals, rockets, and construction. Heck, he even has a vice in his room. Clearly he's going to be a damn good engineer one day. Maybe work for NASA. Some parents dream for a clever, creative kid like that.

But through the eyes of Buzz and Woody, he's a pimply brace-faced monster and he must be destroyed. Go figure.

I am horribly naive, but I prefer it that way.

This is the conclusion I have drawn from the book I’m currently reading, called But What If We're Wrong, by Chuck Klosterman. Chuck writes with a sense of sarcasm and looks at the world somewhat unconventionally with this need to question every damn thing, which makes for good reading on a fairly wide range of subjects. He is known as an essayist and I find that kind of writing is where he really shines, but there really is something for everyone. For anyone who hasn't read his work, I highly recommend you do so.

Anyway, in his introduction to this book, Chuck mentions how gravity as we know it might only be partially explained, leaving us with lots of wrong answers that we accept on an objective level. It brought to mind an argument between the characters of Phoebe, a flaky hippie, and Ross, a paleontologist with a doctorate, on the popular TV show Friends. Chances are high that you saw those names and didn't need me to name the show. You've probably seen this episode. Phoebe questions, first, evolution, and then gravity, debating its existence and even the type of the direction of the force being exerted. "Lately," she says, "I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed." Everyone laughs. Ross pops a blood vessel in his forehead.

And, in this scenario, I am, at least inwardly, Ross. I would like to think I would not throw a tantrum if someone disagreed with my thoughts on gravity. (I cannot say the same about my views on movies, but I digress.)

Look, I am not very good at handling that level of uncertainty - I know this about myself, that's why I don't go to magic shows - but spend a great deal of time learning as much as possible to eliminate it by providing an endless parade of answers, answers, answers.

But, I wonder, am I really eliminating it?

I took a class in wellness once and there are various dimensions of wellness, the number of which varies depending on the theorist. There's physical wellness, spiritual wellness, occupational wellness, and so on. I learned that actions informed by one type of wellness, such as reading to engage and improve intellectual wellness, can overlap with other wellness dimensions, like emotional wellness if the reading is for escapism.

I think this is the case for me. But reading is much more than mere enjoyment. The pursuit of the intellectual soothes what would otherwise bother me in regards to uncertainty. I derive the emotional from the intellectual, not in spite of it.

Now, there is the ironic catch-22 that the more we learn, the less we know, which I learned at 7 years old from The Hogan Family theme song. Yet, for the most part, I do feel soothed by reading. It fills the black holes with … something.

I think this is why I read and watch movies and listen to music. It calms the part of me that is frantically searching for answers.

It gives even more credence to Chuck Klosterman's argument, too. Sometimes we just want to know. Not know, but "know." We placate ourselves because something at least halfway feasible is better than a verified nothing. So we believe scientists and findings and studies and the latest literature in the same way that those who have faith unquestionably hold to scripture or the words of religious leaders.

So, if I've learned nothing else this far, I will give my fiancé the benefit of the doubt and humour him on his theory of who assassinated John F. Kennedy, to which I used to respond, "Are you sure it wasn't Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick?"

Now, to gravitate away from these thoughts (see what I did there?) for a fun little exercise in creativity and my swiftly diminishing long-term memory, I do want to venture into my own personal version of what Chuck Klosterman describes as the few times he got something right ("the exceptions") in contrast to the many times he was wrong (the "most things").

Because that's the beauty of learning. To get from the "most things" to "the exceptions", the list will always be wildly unbalanced and never in your favour. Anyone who thinks they have been right more than they've been wrong … well, they're wrong right there.


My List of Times I Got It Wrong (Massively Abridged for the Sanity of Readers)

The time I confidently fell asleep on the sofa during U.S. election night, confident I would wake up to the first female American president, Hillary Clinton.

Not saving my allowance as a child and letting compound interest work its wonders, instead of buying the third Spice Girls album (the one without Ginger).

Thinking I'm fine until the next rest stop.

Every single time I felt like a slippery eel covered in sunscreen with SPF bajillion and someone said, "Do you want more?" and I said, "No thanks, I'm good." (You remember this moment and hate yourself when you're looking down later that very same day at your Elmo legs and your lobster body.)

My published review of Adele's album 19, where I thought she wouldn't amount to much.

The wedding vows at my first marriage.

The time I swore I would never need a smartphone.

Treating all-you-can-eat buffets like a challenge.

Taking anyone's word that something doesn't have raisins in it.

The fifth drink in two hours.

The time I filled two gigantic emergency jerry cans as part of a COVID-19 quarantine kit days before the self-isolation orders and watched gas prices plummet the next week.

Karaoke.

Pulling an all-nighter before heading back by bus from Montreal to Toronto on my grade 8 grad trip thus sleeping the entire ride home.

That time I spelled it "pidgeon" and my third-grade teacher made me write it out fifty times the correct way. (Maybe that's why I dislike birds…)

Every single time I try to play along with The Price is Right.



My List of Times I Got It Right (Not Nearly As Abridged As I'd Like It To Be)

When the teen tournament runs on Jeopardy.

Every game of Trivial Pursuit.

When the fiancé asked me what type of animal family orcas belong to, and I said the dolphin family.

Betting on Kelly Clarkson as the first American Idol.

Bulk buying toilet paper.

I used to paint. In fact, I've always been somewhat fond of art, even the kind I could not fully comprehend.

My grandmother and my mother were both ardent supporters of any artistic endeavour that took my fancy. My grandmother would prove herself the strongest advocate, pursuing avenues for me without asking. I believe I may be published in a poetry collection from somewhere in the rural outskirts of Manchester. Who's to say? Regardless, she would always press me for pictures and paintings. When I was still counting my age by the fingers I held up, I had drawn a mouse with some cheese. She took this masterwork of a burgeoning genius (her words, not mine) with her across the pond when she departed from Canada, leaving me young and ironically lost in my homeland.

But time went on. I grew up. I grew stronger.

During a French exam in high school that I finished in less than half the time given, I took my number two pencil to the blank canvas that was the back of the exam paper. I sketched a geisha that took up eighty-five percent of the paper. The proctor who happened to be my teacher gazed over shoulders to ensure no funny business was occurring under her watchful eye. She glimpsed my art, or graffiti of sorts, on the back of my exam, and smiled. I smiled back and she actually returned my paper after it was graded in case I wanted to keep my art. I took it home. I believe my mother kept it from getting tossed in the trash. I eventually found out that it had been kept, like found treasure. My mother even pulled it out to show off to my grandmother on one of her transatlantic forays.

I remember, when I was engaged to be married and moved into my first apartment, collecting up art like it would sustain me with much the same gusto that those who lived through the Depression hoard non-perishables in their pantry. If I have this, I'll be fine. Best to have too much than not enough. One particular piece is actually a pair of collages in hot pink and bright blues and greens with recognizable faces in the forefront: Marilyn Monroe whom my grandmother adored on one and Audrey Hepburn whom I idolize on the other. I put them up in my bedroom. It was our bedroom at the time. The husband left (I asked him to), but the art remained.

Once the apartment was truly mine, I rearranged the bedroom and moved the art from one wall to another, but they stayed by my side. I loved this art and remembered reading in bed and, every so often, glancing up and seeing these two women staring back at me, both stuck in freeze frame poses that indelibly captured their roles but not their souls. Still, something sang from their eyes: Everything is going to be fine. Take comfort. Read on.

I read books about divorce at this time. I read books about failed marriage. Some were self-help, others followed narratives. Years later, I read Demi Moore's memoir Inside Out and got absorbed with a section about the dissolution of her relationship with fellow Brat Pack actor Emilio Estevez. It resonated with me:

“He didn’t want me to come up there to talk in person, either, and that’s when I thought, You know what? I’m going to stop trying to call him and call a realtor instead. I found an adorable fifties beach house on the end of a cul-de-sac in Malibu. And then I told Emilio I was moving out. He showed up in no time with a tattoo of a broken heart, trying to get me back. I think he was one of those men, at least in his youth, who found you much more interesting once he’d lost you. But it was too late: once I’m done, I’m done” (Moore 126).

And that was me. Once I'm done, I'm done. I broke up with a boyfriend at that tumultuous time. I ended up very ill soon after, which happened only once before when I had a truly awful boyfriend who broke up with me on my sixteenth birthday and I then contracted rumbling appendicitis seemingly the moment he said, "This isn't working out." At least back then I had parents who cared when their daughter collapsed in agony on the kitchen floor. Living alone was different. I took the key back from my first serious boyfriend after the breakup of my marriage, changed the locks, suffered through my first Valentine's Day as a single woman at which time I scoffed down chocolates given to me by friends who either pitied me or fancied me, and, a week later, I found myself dragging my trembling body in a slow crawl through my own vomit from my bedroom floor to my bathroom floor. When I tried to stand up in the loo, I passed out and bruised my back before hitting the ground. I remember dragging myself back to bed hours later, weak as I've ever felt, but, once there, looking up at these two strong divorcees, I never once contemplated going back. Once I'm done, I'm done.

Time went on. I grew up. I grew stronger.

In April 2019, I asked out a client who I had shot the shit with for almost three years. I'll make a long story short: we're married. He was a delight and, turns out, he likes art, too. Granted, I now have too much art and not enough wall. Many pieces lean up against a table in the basement for now, waiting to be returned to glory again once we finally renovate the office or the guest bedroom. But as you walk through the door and into our home, you can see clean through to the living room where Audrey and Marilyn stare you down before you've even had the chance to wipe your feet on the doormat.

And that is exactly what happened the other day. After doing his rounds from the magnets on the fridge to the toy car on our coffee table, my stepgrandson paused as if he was entranced by these paired pieces of art that have urged me through tough times and laughed with me through the more buoyant moments. I wondered if they were speaking to him, precious and inquisitive and joyful, in much the same way that they spoke to me.

He looked back at us, hanging in anticipation of what he might say. The wisdom of a boy on the verge of two years old can be greater than one would assume. Finally, he uttered a simple word: "Ew."

Elmo then popped on the adjacent TV screen and all was forgotten for him. We laughed, really hard. I'm still laughing, reliving it with my husband until our ribs were thoroughly tickled. That's art, though. Everyone's a critic.

My grandmother died this year and my grandfather returned to Canada within six months. He shipped over all his worldly belongings along with boxes of what my grandmother had kept through the years. He'd sold the records, but, as it turned out, he'd kept the paintings. My grandmother had my art. She had a painting of a pig that I'd done while I was with my first husband. She still had the mouse and cheese piece from when she was taller than me; she was under five feet, by the way, so I dwarfed her and swiftly. I even found the geisha drawing on the back of my French exam. She had kept it all. My grandmother will always be a saint to me.

And only today did it occur to me that when I looked up at Audrey and Marilyn, whose voices have been recorded for the sake of longevity countless times, I did not hear them telling me to get up off the floor and keep going. I heard my grandmother's voice. She said one day she would see my name in lights. She was always my biggest supporter, my greatest fan. I've made peace with the fact that no one will be as enthusiastic of me as she was. But now that I'm in her place, fanatical about this boy of almost-two the way she had been of me my whole life, seeing everything he does as its own artform, there's only one thing I must know: what exactly did my grandmother say to my grandson to make him say, "Ew." (I bet it was a dirty limerick. She always got me with the one that goes, "There was an old lady from Leeds...")