Remembering Creativity
When I was a child the afternoons were filled with fantastical storylines. Whether it was imaginative games similar to The Floor is Lava or making my stuffed animals come alive, there were always stories at play. I did not have to think about life stuff or did not want to think about life stuff. Instead I explored the world that was as vast as my imagination could create in my living room.
Now at 50 years old, a very fabulous age I must say, I am having another creative awakening. Ever since becoming an adult, every decade or so, I’ve been trying to grasp that child-like nature buried beneath the responsibilities of adulting and motherhood.
Did you spend hours and hours playing and daydreaming? I’ve been wondering, who told us to stop? Why did we listen?
My family is from the eastern part of Cuba, they immigrated to the United States five years before I was born during the second wave of Cuban immigration in the early 1970s. They were not the rich white Cubans who fled right after the Cuban Revolution started, but after 10 years of living with rationed milk and food and seeing that equality didn’t really exist under communism, they left to Brooklyn where my Tía Abuela Giorgina lived. My parents did not have much to pack except for Mami’s stories. When I was old enough to ask questions she began unpacking.
These stories were transmited orally, my mami was a reader not a writer, she was an artist and a keeper of stories. Her storytelling was usually on Saturday nights while we watched Fantasy Island and drew ducks during commercial breaks. She also shared these stories as she swept the floors and hung up the laundry, and on late night phone calls with her sister and cousins in Miami and Union City, NJ. They reminisced while smoking Virginia Slims Menthol Ultra Lights cigarettes with their cafecitos way past midnight. It became a ritual.
Other kids may have been sleeping at this hour. I was always nearby, listening while playing; collecting memories of my mami swimming in the river in Jobabo, my aunts and uncle scheming under my strict abuelo household and all my abuela’s comedic incidents from escaping a loose bull at a carnaval to roasting the dead at their own wakes.
My mami passed down everything that I could not experience. She made sure I was connected to Cuba while living in Brooklyn. Because of this there has been as aspect of my creativity that has been about longing. Longing to be with family in another country, longing for the ease of Cuban Spanish, longing for no one to question my name, my face, my origins. Longing for the soil beneath my feet to whisper, “you are home.”
Perhaps this is why building stories and representation is very important to me. Not just mine but yours and yours and yours. There were times that stories didn’t even live in my imagination. They were tucked away in a thick brain fog. I thought that was it. Creativity, other worlds, and my imagination were gone until I laughed again and created again through stories in community.
Instead of passively tapping into creativity and believing it is no longer there, I am now intentional. Creativity isn’t what could have been but what is and what is possible, inshaAllah. Even though I have always had a relationship with God, it wasn’t until maybe a few years in as a Muslim that I realized the whole world is full of creativity by design. The imaginative flow that I had as a child was not meant to stop at childhood. Everything that I was collecting had a purpose. Maybe not just for my storytelling but to support others to tap into their creativity.
Creativity and curiosity go hand in hand. When was the last time you experienced something new that reminded you of being a child?
If you are not doing it again, I suggest you reflect back to the moments you were the most creative.
What did it feel like? What did you enjoy the most?
Embracing creativity and giving permission to the imaginative is part of what makes us writers. Of course there is also craft and discipline but those are enhancers of creativity. I am a firm believer that Allah would not have put that seed of enjoying writing if I wasn’t meant to write. I would not have been from a lineage of women of storytellers and helpers either.
I didn’t fully listen to the people who told me to stop daydreaming. How about you?
Our next workshop is More Than Writing: A Workshop on Optimizing Your Substack.
When: April 9th, 2026, via Zoom
1pm Lisbon | 3pm Istanbul | 8pm Singapore | 8am Brooklyn
There is more to Substack than writing posts. I will walk you through the elements that will help you grow on Substack while maintaining authenticity. This workshop is open and free for all. If you’re a paid subscriber you will have access to the recording and I will personally give an audit of your Substack within 7-10 after the workshop.
Do you know about the MWS Writing Residency September 7-14th, 2026 in Órgiva, Spain? Learn more HERE, applications are open until May 31st, 2026, inshaAllah.
I love reading this, especially at how it captured the essence of creativity. I'm currently taking a break from writing novels due to burnout and the years of pressuring myself to make a living.
Those years of being forced to write a word no matter how much I wanted to just close the laptop made me dislike writing. Now, I'm taking time to rekindle my love for writing.
Yes, my writing is filled with longing just like yours. Longing to be who I was before the love of writing somehow slipped away.
After 50 the real shift isn’t creative ability but creative permission. At some point you stop asking for it. Creativity unblocked is a powerful thing.