She stared down intently at the paper before she started. Watching her, it looked as if the paper was talking to her. Finally, she started to work. She put some words here. She drew some pictures there. The birthday card started to come together. When she finished she wasn't quite satisfied. Something was missing.
She left and returned with some more paper and proceeded to make a pop up door to cover the picture on the front. Then, it was finished. The birthday card was ready to be presented to her friend later in the day.
My wife and I have often spoke about how creative our daughter is. She loves to draw and paint. She loves to write songs and perform. She loves to make up stories. Basically, if it involves creativity, she is interested.
However, as I watched Caelyn create the birthday card, it became clear to me that my daughter was an artist. Creating art (whether it be a picture, story or song) is not just something she does for fun. It is part of who she is. I don't think she could stop creating if she wanted to. It is in her nature.
One Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go to church, I heard Caelyn in the kitchen. She was writing a song she wanted to sing for our friend who is the church music director. She would sing a line. Pause. Sing it a little differently. Pause. This pattern would continue until she was satisfied with the line. Only then would she write it down. This continued line by line until she was comfortable with the song in it's entirety.
The other day at a restaurant, Caelyn was distraught that they were low on crayons and she only received two colors. She worked on a picture for a while and finally quit. A little upset, she looked over at me and explained she couldn't get the picture she wanted because she didn't have the colors she needed.
Caelyn is also an avid consumer of artistic endeavors of all types whether they be music, movies, TV, books or paintings. She shocked me one day while watching a show on t.v. She noticed a painting in the background. "Is that a Jackson Pollock?" she asked. A closer look by me and I had to admit, if it wasn't, it certainly looked like one.
She is constantly looking for an explanation as to why the characters in the books she reads or shows she watches do the things they do. When it comes to music, she wants an explanation of what the song means. Not content with that, she will ask what the singer meant by using specific words.
And of course there is the live music that she consumes as if obsessed. It doesn't matter if it is a crowd of forty thousand or 4, she wants to see it. She asks almost daily if she can see this band or that band when they come through.
She gets noticed at these shows too. Multiple times I have been approached by people at shows with ties to a rock camp for girls in Brooklyn. At a recent show at the Knitting Factory, Caelyn and I were hanging out with an all female band named The Coathangers when a woman gave me the number of a another woman who teaches girls to play rock music. The instructor in question has her own studio in Greenpoint and plays in a band with Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill.
It is amazing to watch the reaction of the female musicians to Caelyn when she is at their shows. They see something in her. They spend time with her talking about music and they don't talk down to her when they do. They encourage her to play even one time pointing to the Knitting Factory stage and saying they expect to see her up their in 10 years.
I don't know where her interests will lie in 10 years or further along the road. One thing I am certain of though is for her to be happy, she must create. I hope and pray she never tries to bury that creativity for it is truly a gift.
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