Remember that famous line in the movie (or play) A Streetcar
Named Desire, when Blanche DuBouis said, in that slow, deep, Southern drawl,
“Whoever you are, I’ve always
depended on the kindness of strangers.”
I can totally relate to that, but
my quote has a bit of a twist, and a hard-A Midwestern accent, “Whoever you
are, I’ve always depended on the creativity of strangers.” My mom always used
to say, “You are so creative!” Actually, I’m not. I’m so imitative. I can draw,
but not with my own brain. I copy the art of others quite well. But that’s not
all I copy. My friend and I were talking about how she put together a birthday
party for her son about 12 years ago. The theme was SpiderMan and she put little
Spiderman cutouts on toothpicks and lovingly inserted them in each party-goer’s
cupcake. She had the kids wear Spiderman outfits and all of the decorations had
the same theme. When I reminded her of this and admitted that I had been
impressed and a little bit jealous, she said that she had to do it all herself
because up here we did’t have party supply stores and we definitely didn’t have
Pinterest! You can bet your banana that the next party I threw had some sort of
superhero theme and decorations! These days creativity and style have made a
huge leap forward in my life with the advent of Pinterest. My son’s graduation
party decorations and food ideas were chosen thanks to a long evening on
Pinterest, pinning and re-pinning. Deciding and changing my mind depended on
the next “graduation party food ideas” pin I came across. Don’t have something
to crochet? Type “crochet patterns” in the search line and Wa-La! Hundreds of
ideas ready to go! I don’t even have to labor over outfits anymore. If I don’t
know what to wear, I just go to my “Ideas for Improving my Wardobe” board and
pick out something, then run upstairs and get dressed…once. We are getting our
family pictures taken so I have a board “Family Photo” and made sure the
photographer checked it out so that we can both be sure our family pictures
reflect the current trends and don’t remind people of the Olan Mills
Photography Studio wagon wheel and background scene hanging behind us.
In fact,
when I was trying to figure out what to wear for the family pictures, I went
right back to Pinterest and looked at what the other moms were wearing so I
could be sure I have on just the right cardigan with boots combo to reflect my
fashion-forward lifestyle. Yup, the depths of my creativity and style are
endless and I am not ashamed. Thank you kind stranger.
