I shifted directions in my blog, at least for now. Now, I am in pursuit of creativity, my own. I have been pretty good about verbal descriptions of my feelings, investigating possible reasons for the way I feel, using all my powers of observation, reasoning and analysis of trace evidence (yes, I’ve been watching more of the TV show, Dexter).

I’ve had enough of reasoning. I want to be able to shift into neutral gear, unhooking my power of analytic thinking and allow a nonverbal part of me to see the light of day. This sounds a lot like the way some people describe the process of meditating. I tried that in my youth and it’s probably time to start again.

Exercise I gave to my granddaughter

While visiting my family in Chicagoland, we went to dinner. My granddaughter was starving while we were waiting for the waitress. Her parents were not too receptive to her pleas, so I stepped in. I asked her to draw what it felt like to be hungry. This is what she came up with:

Not exactly what I had in mind, so I asked her to sketch some more.

Now we’re getting to feelings. But even here, it was difficult for her to picture the feeling of hunger. Instead, she drew pictures of herself being hungry.

Although I don’t remember asking her what she felt like after dinner, she drew the following:

Not innate

My granddaughter is still in the single digits, age-wise. She is extremely bright and also tuned in to her feelings. Yet, the depiction of what it felt like to be hungry came down to illustrations of words. ‘Hunger’ is a word as well as a feeling. It must be more natural to describe it using words rather than to create a visual representation.

What is the process that one would go through to change from expression by words to expression by creating a visual representation? I spend a lot of time looking at blank watercolor paper wondering how to start. It might be time to do some research.