I used to be in full-on fantasy mode and I don’t mean D&D and 20-sided dice. I was a generator, a creative, someone who scribbled out strange stories, refined them, then got on stage and shared them with strangers and friends alike (Daniel Hoffman was in the audience once, eyes closed and smiling to my story). I dressed shoddy (I should say shoddier). I had friends who were all artists. I had an online ‘zine where I wrote about all of them. I lived in the woods for a full year.

So now I’m grown up and I’m wondering where it all went. Did the creativity die? [My wife does the same, her art is amazing and yet the last 5 years have been a bit slow for her, too.]

Can I still make believe?

I look at my little daughter. The artist, the dancer, the story teller, the scientist, the gardener. And I realize I’ve been incubating…pouring my creativity into her world. Giving her my energy and watching her soak it up.

Make up stories. Every night. She gets tucked in, we negotiate the hard book count (somewhere between 3-5), and read together. Then she’s tucked in again (she’s a wiggler), lights out, and before I can even walk back to her bed. “Make up story, make up story, daddy”

Every night, for three years, princesses and ponies, mermaids and mansions, flying carpets and fantasy. Most the time I start the story without knowing the ending…improvising based on her reactions and comments.

So I can still make believe (shoulder pat pat pat)…I’ve just shifted my audience. Just like I used to be a teacher to 100s of kids a week and now I only teach mine. I might not remember the decision process but I remember the choice I made: focus on the new family. Soak up every moment of her childhood…of my wife young, lithe, and beautiful.

I spent the last 5 years tilling, sowing, weeding, attracting butterflies & bees to the yard.

I’m beginning to realize I wasn’t just incubating my kid, I was incubating myself. So much of my recent career has been stability seeking…so I could incubate. Now I’m done. I’m charged. I saw my kid walking her new school’s hallways, coloring at her table. The cloistering stage is over and we’re all coming out of the cocoon. B is going to school. S is starting her recycled clothing line and I’m…well….you’ll know soon enough but I’m back to make believe.

Actually, I never left it.