On Sandcastles & Creativity & Racism
I sat on the rainbow beach blanket, my toes buried in the sand, and I watched my three huddled around a pile of sand and water.
(Yes, let’s pause just for a moment to bask in the realization that the beaches that were shut down three months prior have now been opened up, with perfect opportunities for socially distant toes in sand. Praise be.)
The goal was building a sandcastle. It wasn’t going well. The mold filling first involved sand too dry, then sand too wet. Eventually, they figured out the right recipe but there was a dispute regarding the building plans. The seven year old led the creative directing, but she quickly learned that the five year old was going to come in with his own ideas whether she liked it or not. And the one year old, well, he just wanted to be in on it, which often meant literally IN ON IT—tiny but mighty feet on top of just built towers. The trials and tribulations of granular architecture continued on and on, but eventually, the castle started to take shape.
All the while, I sat on that beach with a grin on my face, and my finger snapping pictures in order to document the artists at work. I knew the castle would get built. I knew they would work it out, figure out the proper sand packing method, determine who could fill the moat with water without toppling the tower, and also how to keep the least experienced crew member busy with a little tower of his own, for the sake of the project. I knew if I let them at it long enough, their mess would create beauty.
I’ve seen this before.
This is how their creative endeavors always begin. Their first swipe of a water color brush, their first chubby hand scribble, their first squishy painted handprint. I have a memory box full of dated wrinkly paper to prove my love of this early, messy work.
Are they very good? Not really. But that’s not the point. What matters is the process, the learning from mistakes, the problem solving, the practice, practice, practice. After time, the art changes. The scribbles become stick figure family portraits on mother’s day cards, painted abstracts in the hallway at school, and one day (if they ever go back to school again) clay bowls from high school pottery class or maybe an art nouveau photography collection. Eventually all children become artists in their own unique ways, but first it must be messy.
As a mother, I know about this mess. I know about making mistakes. I know about my own battles with feeding struggles, sleep plans, discipline strategies, and don’t even get me started on potty training. Every bit of my parenting journey, this practice of mistakes and learning, it’s messy. But it’s necessary and beautiful work.
I’ve had the humble honor of watching another mess unfold into beauty, right in my own city, my own backyard, the very church and neighborhood my family calls home. When George Floyd was murdered, we mourned and we raged. But all this mourning and raging also led to buildings burned down, businesses destroyed, and people even more traumatized than they were before. In the last three weeks, I have watched, in person and on screen, as our community enacted the process of turning mess into beauty. It was not very pretty at first. Coordinating support of thousands with the help of only a few staff members is never going to look pretty. But the organizing of generosity, the response to a call, and the imperfect humility to lead with a vision of abundance created something from this mess. Each day I showed up to help, I watched a new vision taking shape, a better way to do the work we were thrust into overnight. A masterpiece of love of a city, it’s people, and with a strong shared mission of justice. I feel as if I stand in awe the same way I did walking into the Sistine Chapel.
No, scratch that, this awe feels even better than that experience, because I never got to watch Michelangelo struggle. I never watched him at work. I never saw how he strained to bring his vision to a humble crumbly building through the simple act of one brush stroke at a time. But I see it now.
This creative process is happening all over our world right now. We are a mess. Combating 400 years of systemic racism is a mess. Reexamining our own racial biases is a mess. Protesting for humanity is a mess. But it’s also beautiful. Activists are working with leaders. Mothers are working with children. Influencers are working with followers. And we are all trying our best to begin the creative process to turn this mess into beauty. Mistakes will be made. But that has always been part of the creative process. We are all being called to be artists for our world.
That is what creativity is all about.
As I watch my own little artists on the sand, putting the finishing touches on their castle, I dread having to be the one to announce we must go home. I brace myself for the whines.
“But we were just getting started! How are we ever going to make it like this again?”
“We’ll be back tomorrow. And I’ll bet you can make it even better.”
My hope for you, dear friends, is that your plans for tomorrow involve creating something better.
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This essay was shared as part of my monthly Raise & Shine Letter. To read the rest of the letter, including links to where I am finding creativity in the midst of anti-racist work, you can subscribe here.