Linda K Sienkiewicz

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Creative Pursuits

November 30, 2020 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

My friend Desiree Cooper shared this post on Facebook. What memories it brought back to me! Without doubt, my creative pastimes as a child shaped who I am today.

Solitary Play

For hours, I would lay on the living room floor and stare at our stucco ceiling. I conjured an old man’s face, a horse’s head, a fish jumping out of its bowl…. It’s a wonder my mother didn’t ask me what I was doing, but she let me be.

I filled large pads of manila drawing paper with drawings. I folded, cut and stapled pages into hand-sized books. In them, I penciled cheesy love stories with illustrations.

The woods behind my house were my playground. Deep in a private world, I talked happily to the spiders and salamanders as if they were my friends, creating ruses and adventures. I created huts from sticks and mud.

From my mother’s many shoe boxes, I made doll houses for my trolls with beds, tables, televisions and art on the walls. I hand stitched itty bitty clothes for them from scraps of fabric.

I saved my favorite picture books. Many of them have pencil marks, as if I had tried to write my own stories before I knew the alphabet.

Playmates

My playmate Jennifer and I created a cast of characters and scenarios with our toy collection of rubber erasers shaped like bears, ducks, elephants, hippos, rabbits and pigs. I knew the names of all her critters, she knew all of mine, and they all had distinct personalities. 

Another playmate, Jackie, and I played army and we fought the Commies (this was the early sixties). We spent most of our time building fortifications around the ravine behind his house and learning how to spy. We strapped our trolls into toy jeeps and pulled them by strings through the woods.

If I groused about being bored when my friends weren’t around, my mother sent me outside. Fresh air. Go run around the house six times. Either that or she gave me chores, so I became good at occupying myself.

Translate that to adult pursuits

No wonder that as an adult, I enjoy creating fictional worlds, writing poetry, and making art.

How about you? What games or pursuits did you partake in that helped shape who you are today?


Thank you for visiting.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist:
Multi-finalist award winning novel In the Context of Love
Picture book Gordy and the Ghost Crab

Latest poetry chapbook: Sleepwalker

Connect with Linda: LinkTree

Filed Under: Art & Crafting, It's Personal Tagged With: creativity, play

What, Why, How: Karla Huston

February 15, 2017 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

What: I write poetry; I write poetry reviews. I’ve committed acts of fiction but decided long ago that writing poetry was more fun, more satisfying than writing a 20-or-30-page story. I have no … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: What, Why, How Tagged With: play, poet laureate, poetry, words

About Linda

Award- winning writer, poet & artist. Cynical optimist. Super klutz. Corgi fan. Author of two novels, a picture book which she wrote and illustrated, and five poetry chapbooks. More here.

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