Dear Usdan community:
Since the first days of the quarantine, I have been encouraging people to be creative. I have no graphs, no charts or statistics to show you but my gut tells me that the folks who are managing best right now are the ones who are making art. My Usdan colleagues and I even launched Summer Starts Now because we are passionate about helping people engage in creative ways to get through this
crisis.
But I have a confession to make: other than one oil pastel I drew on a sunny day and one black out poem I wrote in response to a Usdan post...I have made nothing.
Whenever I thought about making something, I just shut down. I felt too much pressure to make something good and too much pressure to share what I made.
But Monday evening, I had a breakthrough. While celebrating a birthday with two friends on zoom I needed a little privacy so went outside. There on the deck, I lit myself with a Little Sun solar lamp so people could see me. As the call progressed, I became obsessed with changing the lighting angles and the phone angles with the one and only goal of cracking my friends up.
This Saturday, those two friends and I will meet on zoom again to stage an unrehearsed reading of Macbeth. When we remembered that Macbeth opens with the question “When shall we three meet again,” we had to do that play to understand the answer.
The whole purpose of the reading is to make us laugh. We promised no one will see the
work but us, which for me is so liberating. No need to rehearse, no pre-assigned roles, and we’re each going to stack potential costumes, accessories and props next to us to get into character quicker.
I haven’t done Macbeth since high school. Back then performing and creating was how I had fun. All of the Usdan children are that way: they make art because for them, that’s fun! Creating is their form of play.
Finally, for me, it’s time to play. Is the time ripe for you too?
Sincerely yours,