1998-English 101
Third Place
Creativity Born from Boredom
By Karen Estep
Quite often different people I come across commend me on my creative ability to draw and paint. The observer's comments usually include the question "Where did you learn how to draw like that?" I normally tell them some generic answer like "a lot of practice, " but truthfully my response should be "in my miserably boring childhood." However I usually refrain from being that honest to either avoid a weird look or to avoid a lengthy explanation like the one that follows.
Compared to some of the horrible stories of child abuse I've heard, my childhood was a Walt Disney fairytale, but in my own eyes I was an unhappy kid. I was born in 1972, which is the Chinese Year of the Rat (the rat's Chinese characteristic is to scavenge for survival, which is also a part of my personality). From old pictures, my fragmented memories, and tales told by my grandma Mildred, I was close to my parents during my first six or seven years, especially my dad. My dad, Richard, was employed straight out of college as an Aerospace engineer with the Logicon Corporation (where he still works to day). He married my mom, Loretta, (who also became an Aerospace engineer for Logicon) seven years before I was born. My parents fought almost every night as far back as I can remember, and I can still recall covering my ears with a pillow to escape their bickering. I've always sort of believed that it was my mom's fault, possibly because her voice was always the loudest screech I could hear. I know the blame should rest equally between them, but my mother was always so demanding and emotional while my dad was a quiet man who was able to control his anger unless really pushed. I think she was used to a lot of emotions in her past and would intentionally aggravate my dad just to get more of a reaction from him who seemed sometimes to be in an emotional coma.
Despite their fighting, I was at my happiest during those early years because my family still did things together. My parents, my brother Darryl seven years my senior, and I would go on trips to the mountains, the Los Angeles Zoo (at which I still can remember a goat knocking me down and stealing my cookie in the petting zoo), and various theme parks. We watched movies together and attended my brother's little league games where I would run off with this little Mexican boy to play in the huge willow tree next to the snack stand. We lived on Zephyr Street in a nice upper middle-class neighborhood, which was located in a small Los Angeles suburb named Harbor City. I attended Lorenz Hillside, a private school that was only four blocks away, but my parents always drove me to school. The actual known world aside from school when I was six years old began at the street corner one house down to the other end of our block long street and sometimes around the corner where my cousin Jay lived.
Since no one I went to school with lived anywhere near me, my playmates were limited to the children who lived on my street. My pre-bicycle years were spent playing with my Legos (my first outlet for creativity) and jumping over my front porch hedge with the Garcia family's boy who lived across the street. I also played with Chrissy and Kim next door (when their Bible-thumping mother Sharon didn't ground them), a boy named Ian a few doors down, and my cousin Jay (when his parents weren't out adventuring in the Pacific Ocean or partying). After I got my red Schwinn for Christmas when I was seven, I was able to reach my friends a second quicker and participate in the orange throwing wars, that took place around Ian's tree, with a greater advantage than the others. Because the parameters of my world did not expand with my new mode of transportation, it became increasingly difficult to make riding up and down the street more exciting. The bumper bike and the daredevil-obstacle-jumping games we would play on our bikes angered the old fogies on the street, and eventually led to the censoring of our favorite "games of destruction." I usually had to be the ringleader because my friends were too dull to come up with anything imaginative, and so I became labeled as the "bad influence." Because of this unsavory image, along with the natural changes that took place in neighborhoods, my collection of friends began to dwindle. Ian had lived with his grandmother, and she did her best to phase me out of his playtime. The Garcia's moved away, and Kim and Chrissy were exported regularly to some other neighborhood to play. With my neighborhood playmate resources plummeting and my parent's increased involvement in their jobs, I was forced to entertain myself. This I didn't mind too much because I got along with myself so well, but there are just so many Lego castles I could build (without interaction with fellow troublemakers.)
When I was eight years old my parents bought a house on Ocean View Ave which was five blocks away in the City of Lomita which was very similar to Harbor City. We still retained our old house in Harbor City to rent out, but independent visits to the neighborhood were impossible because of the great six-lane barrier of Western Avenue. Since my friend supply in Harbor City had dwindled, it wasn't hard for me to forget the old neighborhood. However the new street had an equally skimpy supply of fellow kid adventures. Every house on this street had either grumpy old white people or young adults with no kids. The old man and his wife across the street had two kids late in life. Their daughter Janice was a few years older than I was, but we got along pretty well. She had a younger brother John whom I ignored as long as Janice wasn't grounded (which was quite often because her parents were the Grand Masters of Bible-thumping).
Soon the neighbors a few doors down moved out and were replaced by Kate and her always-absent parents. Kate was a fine troublemaker and teamed up with Janice and me against poor little Johnny. Kate forever changed the image of Johnny when she nicknamed him "Egghead" to suit his abnormally large head. This nickname remained with him long after Kate moved away the following year. Soon a boy named Craig moved in replacing Kate. He was fun to play with but he couldn't come out to play very much since his parents were always gone. It seemed that Janice and Johnny were always in trouble so I was very often left to play by myself since I still wasn't allowed off of the street.
Out of necessity, I continued to entertain myself with my collection of Legos and GI JOE action figures. At ten I found that by building with my legos and listening by my new found friend, television, I could keep boredom away and tune out my parent's continuous bickering and later their more disturbing silence. The last few years of their marriage they withdrew from each other as well as the family into their careers in an effort to stall their inevitable break up. The tension between them eventually alienated me and along with my lack of playmates, I withdrew into my own little world. To compensate for the lack of family closeness and playmate companionship, I lost myself in the imaginary worlds found in books, television, and toys.
I had already been very productive with art projects in school, but I never focused on art as a diversion from my loneliness until I met Jason when 1 was thirteen. Our mutual friend Chrispen, brought Jason over to my house to meet "the girl who looks and acts like a boy." Much to Chrispen's dismay (although he still remained a part of our lives) Jason and I grew to be very close friends. The three of us, accompanied by a few kids who simply served as garnish, were able to sneak past my territorial boundaries to play Ninja and Army in the sewers or in the condominium complex near by. However I only was able to see my new exciting friends on weekends because they both lived a long bike (ride distance) from me. Jason was an excellent artist. He drew beautiful pictures of Ninja and Samurai warriors. My appreciation for his skill inspired me to develop my own artistic talent, which served as an escape during the week from my parent's discomforting relationship and my personal loneliness.
My parents finally split up when I was fourteen years old when I transferred to public school. Although I was now was able to ride my bike further and go to school with more people, I was already set into an isolated lifestyle. I could never get back to the family closeness I had felt as a small child, and since I never grew up with anyone I went to school with, I didn't have much in common with them. Out of my well-developed personality as a loner I became a talented (so I'm told) artist in an effort to self entertain and distract me from my lonely life. Although I never had any imaginary friends growing up, I did have an imaginary world, in which I built with Legos and drew with pictures. These imaginary worlds I escaped to from my boring (poor little rich girl) childhood, not only comforted me but allowed me to develop the creative skills necessary to be an artist. From some people's definition my childhood may not have come close to miserable, but to a sheltered twelve-year-old there is nothing more miserable than being bored and alone.
(Karen Estep, originally from Los Angeles, has lived in Savannah for a year and a half. Before coming to Armstrong, she was a cook the United States Marine Corps and then transferred into the Army to visit Germany. Now enjoying civilian life, she spends her time dabbling in claymations, hoping for California waves, rebuilding her Jet Ski, and pursuing and art degree.)