How my parents saved my creativity

#5 And school almost killed it

Hi, friend! 💌

When I was 14 or 15, I wrote an essay about teachers and how hypocritical they are. We were told to choose something we felt quite passionate about arguing for, so I did. I can’t remember all of it, but I remember including something about the fact that they wear jackets indoors and when the fire alarm goes off, and we’re not allowed to do either of those things. I know it got a lot deeper than that, though, and I was so proud of it.

I guess I’ve always been the kind of writer to say the thing that needed to be said, to say the unpalatable thing, the thing that no one wants to say because it’ll ruffle people’s feathers or make them uncomfortable. I think teenage Cyrene would be thrilled and proud about the fact that I do this regularly on Instagram now.

As you can probably imagine, the essay didn’t go down very well with the teachers who were marking it. In fact, they openly admitted that they gave me a lower mark purely because of the topic I chose, which I knew was unfair at the time, but I’m only just beginning to digest just how unfair that was.

It was a brilliant essay, and that whole situation is the perfect representation of what school was like for me in a creative sense.

I was seen as an academic, nothing more

I’ve recently began to realise I was always creative, even as a child and a teen. I loved music and exploring instruments, I enjoyed art and playing around with different mediums, I loved drama and even chose it as a GCSE subject, I loved creative writing, I even loved Design and Technology, and looked forward to working with different materials and tools.

I loved and still love the exploration, especially the initial “play” stage of discovering a new creative outlet. Interacting with new materials, new sounds, the rush of ideas, figuring out how to put it all together to make a thing. I think I revelled in how my mind felt while I got lost in the process.

Yet, I didn’t consider myself a creative at all until recently. I was seen by the teachers as very “academic”, nothing I did creatively was ever taken seriously.

Actually, it was once — and that’s only because my drawing looked exactly like the model. It was one of those wooden men things visual artists use to get bodily stances accurate.

I was so proud of myself and I revelled in the praise, but when I look back on it, the praise on that occasion was just as creatively stifling as the dismissal of all the other creative things I did, because it reinforced the notion that the only worthy piece of art was one which was deemed so by an authority figure, the one that looked or sounded objectively like it was “supposed to”.

This reality created a barrier for me — I enjoyed all of those earlier mentioned subjects as concepts, but in practice, my enjoyment of them was taken away by the fact that I was always seen as “doing it wrong”. School and the teachers within it usually see you as simply “good at it” or “not good at it”, and I was definitely considered the latter, all because I couldn’t recreate a replica of what they had in their heads. I couldn’t live up to what they believed was the “right” way to do it, as if it was Math or Science.

I was sometimes okay at drawing something that was in front of me, and I loved to trace things because when I’d try to draw free-hand, I never got dimensions correct. But that wasn’t “real art”.

Enjoyment never mattered. Exploration never mattered. Play never mattered. There was no emphasis on the process. There was no importance placed on what was learned or gained along the way. Everything was always about the end piece, and making sure it conformed exactly to the specifications of the teacher or the governing board, their idea of a “good” piece of art.

How my parents saved my creativity

Fortunately, my enjoyment of a process has always been valued by my parents. Trying new creative activities was always encouraged, my effort always praised first and foremost (both with creative and non-creative endeavours). And they still have this attitude, they still believe in what I do, they believe I should speak the uncomfortable truth about my life (even if there is an “oh no” every now and then when they hear what I’m writing about😂).

And that essay (which we have lost otherwise I would totally share it in it’s entirety! I will if we ever find it) — a staple of my teenagehood, not least because I admitted not long after that that I wanted to be a teacher! How ironic! Imagine their surprise🫣. The school may have hated it, but my parents loved it.

They thought it was absolutely hilarious, and I’m smiling thinking about all the family and friends my mum read it to before it went missing. She brought it out at almost every party, especially if someone was there who hadn’t heard it before, and we’d all have a collective laugh at it — not at me, at the contents and the truth of it, and even at the teachers’ reactions.

Okay, it was effed up that my grade was marked down because of the topic I chose, but my parents made sure I always knew that it was a magnificent piece of writing, and that the teachers only didn’t care about this fact because what I said was unpalatable to them, they were offended by it because it was true. Not because the writing was bad.

I wonder how my parents’ reactions have impacted how I show up creatively today

Writing has never stopped being an essential part of me. I feel called to do it, so I do it — I write, I create, I share, as much as it is within my capabilities to do so. I do everything I can to squash those narratives that threaten to stop me.

I am usually able to bat away the worries regarding the criticisms I might get from others, and focus on the feelings it brings up for me, the value it has in my life, and in my body and mind. The way writing and sharing helps me to process everything, and has carried me through the most difficult events of my life. Being able to focus on this helps me to just go with it, whatever “it” is. To “do the thing”, whatever that “thing” may be.

At 24, I picked up a paint brush for the first time since I was a child. I continue to love painting even though I’m unable to do it often. I have canvases and different types of paints. I have a “concepts book” where I draw ideas for new pieces of art. I create my own original paintings, and I call them “original paintings” even though I’m not conventionally “good at it”, even though there’s a little voice in my head saying “that term is only for ‘real artists’”.

“I am a real artist” I respond, and I keep going, because I was taught that being conventionally “good at it” has never mattered, and will never matter. It only matters that it means something to me.

Paintings I made for my parents and sister, and a drawing from my concepts book

And without even meaning to, their reaction to that essay taught me that even if what I share is disliked by someone, someone else, somewhere will always be positively impacted by it, whether they say it out loud or not. They continue to remind me regularly that just as I am a silent consumer and admirer of many creatives (though, I am trying to be more vocal when someone impacts me), statistically, I am likely to have some silent consumers of my own. A truth that is reinforced whenever I get a heartfelt message from someone who is a self-proclaimed “silent follower” of my Instagram.

Most importantly, with my writing, they taught me that some people will not like what I write because it makes them uncomfortable, or illuminates something that they would rather ignore, whether within themselves or in the wider world. But as long as I am speaking the truth, it doesn’t matter.

They taught me to remember who I am and to follow my values, keep doing what I’m doing, regardless of the opinion of others (obviously as long as I’m not encouraging or perpetuating harm). That it’s okay, essential even, to speak about my experiences out loud due to living a life dominated by something that inherently makes others uncomfortable, something not enough people talk about, and that my unique voice and perspective holds so much value.

And they taught me that the impact writing and sharing has on me is enough, and the impact that has on others is a huge bonus and source of extra joy.

I do wonder now whether the way school treated creativity would have killed mine, and whether that event with the essay would have resulted in me stopping writing, if it wasn’t for my family’s reactions. I wonder what would have happened if it wasn’t for the fact that my parents were so proud of it, proud of me, proud of my boldness and my honesty. I wonder if, without their encouragement, I would still have that love for the playful, exploration stage, or the process as well as the end product of building a creative skill. I wonder what impact events like this and my parents’ voices have had on how I choose to show up publicly now.

They’ve saved my life in many ways over the years, but in a less obvious way — I owe my life to the fact that I never stopped writing and creating.

I wonder how much more difficult it would be for me to work towards being creatively free if they did things differently.

What a gift they gave me, without even meaning to.

Lots of love,

Cyrene💘