We slept under skateboard ramps. Two quarter-pipes, six- to eight-feet tall, pushed up against either side of Arcadia Street. It wasn't just the skateboarding or the hardcore music, it was also a chance to do something different, to milk all the day had.
Twenty-five years later and I'm still looking for skateboard ramps to sleep under. Not actual skateboard ramps, mind you--though I wouldn't rule out the right opportunity--but experiences like that. Doing something different and extending the day.
I watched Cameron Crowe's documentary "Pearl Jam 20" Saturday night/Sunday morning. It made me think of the ramps, trail running and the activities that hone the edge for me; that pull what's inside out and manifest it, use it to color a black and white life. Maybe our lives are given to us black and white and it is up to us to add the color.
I got thinking about creativity and art and being able to tap those sources that feel primal, first-hand, unfiltered. Pearl Jam has created albums for 20 years, no two of which sound the same. A bit like Zeppelin in that respect.
It made me think of how I want/try to weave creativity into my life.
First is family. Seeing what our life as a family becomes. To actively help shape or guide or keep it open to possibilities, not have it handed to us already prepared, pre-heated like cafeteria food. To watch and enjoy what our girls do, what Robin does, how we all live.
Second is my own life. Life as a work of art, something we create, where choices are like brushstrokes, painting on an existential canvas.
With family and life first as active, creative works unto themselves, writing as art then comes in as a way to record, document, translate, to give back to it all. This third aspect of creativity, writing in particular, that creating art, that is the part that got stirred up for me watching Pearl Jam 20. Stay tuned for an expanded riff on that subject.
* image above - Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament built a skatepark in his hometown.
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