Throw back Thursdays, Flashback Fridays. It’s nice to look back sometimes.

This guy.

Recently I started throwing back to some old artwork. After 15 months of reading board books and making animal noises, it was good to be reminded that at one time, I was a creative person. Not even just a little creative, VERY creative. Involved in art making. Owned-a-potter’s-wheel, an-easel, hung-six-foot-drawings-from-the-ceiling, stayed-up-all-night-silk-screening-T-shirts, and-made-my-own-stationary, kind of creative.

And then two years went by and I didn’t pick up a paintbrush. How did this happen? My potter’s wheel became a table for old shoe boxes filled with photos, or tubes of paint that were also neglected. Really pathetic stuff. All of my paintings, drawings, and photographs from college were shuffled in and out of storage units, basements and attics so many times, I didn’t know where much of it was anymore. I was starting to feel a bit like I lost my security blanket. I needed my creative things around me. They reminded me.

I’m too damn young for a retrospective! I was thiiiiiiis close to reminiscing about my days as an artist, ready to gather all the painted, polished, carved things in a box and tuck them away in some dusty trunk packed in an attic to show my kids someday. My art skills peaked in college, and I was done, I told myself. Hubs is the artist, I’ll just manage his career.

Then one day I’m flipping through one of my many sketchbooks and looking through some old t-shirt designs I never had the chance to print. There’s a pen in my hand, and I start doodling in the margins and kind of playing on the sidelines of my sketches. Three piles of laundry sat next to me. This is a waste of precious time, I think, no direction, no plan, no purpose. The pen rolled smoothly over the page. Babies started throwing toys out of the playpen. Who do I think I am calling myself an artist? You’ve lost it. The pen kept moving. Almost time to make baby food. It can wait ten minutes. The pen didn’t stop. You have no idea what you’re doing, this doesn’t look like anything. But the ink started to fill the page.

A pen is the best way to jump back in, because once you put that sucker to paper, you can’t erase it. No going back, you’ve made a mark and should probably just keep going.

I’ve been asked: why spend so much time hand making party decorations, editing photos, even decorating a room that you won’t be staying in very long? It’s because these small acts are exercises in creativity-or maybe just a warm-up. They’re also the residual effects of an artistic existence. Creative emissions need grounding, even in the most mundane of activities.

And now, there’s me and this pen, moving forward.