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- Keep all your cameras, backpacks and sunglasses attached to you. This is a very touristy attraction, but it’s the monkeys you need to look out for. They’ll grab your stuff and you’ll end up playing a nasty (although amusing) game of tug of war with them.
- Come early morning or in the evening to avoid the main crowds
- There are several paths and plenty of benches to relax, read or take photographs.
- I’d recommend a nice lunch at Coffee and Copper and a spa treatment afterwards.
- Getting picked up by an elephant from your room and taken to dinner
- Having dinner surrounded by the elephants underneath a starry night
- A delicious breakfast worthy of a 5 star resort
- The opportunity to bathe and play with the elephants in the morning
- An elephant ride
- A bareback elephant ride while she bathes in the pool
- Stimulates the mind. Neural activity is enhanced and our brain creates new pathways when we are thinking differently and creatively.
- Provides an emotional outlet. Being creative allows us to express ourselves, releasing positive and negative emotions.
- Enhances the sense of self. Being creative allows us to explore different facets of our personality, uncover hidden talents and reinforce what we do know about ourselves.
- Helps maintain a positive mindset.Creativity breeds an adventurous spirit. When we ask why or why not questions, experiment and explore, we discover that we are not bound by confines. We are willing to try new things and step out of our comfort zone. Works of art by The Kings
It’s Sunday and we’re a little nervous. We have no idea what we have in the pantry or fridge. This morning we woke up to 1 egg, no oatmeal and some fruit in the pantry. Mr. King put together a little breakfast from it, but it was hardly par for the course.
Wow…Sundays we really feel just how much we love having a personal chef. What? A personal chef? Yes. The luxuries of having a personal chef aren’t reserved for the wealthy and famous. Our normal family of 4 is taking full advantage of staying healthy with a personal chef in Bali.
Sunday is her day off and we usually scrap together a small breakfast and then go out to eat or order in for the rest of the day. We haven’t forgotten how to cook, we just choose not to.
This is exactly how lax you get when you have an incredible personal chef.
This is our second chef. The first one we hired cooked delicious food, but it was only Indonesian food and we were quickly bored with the same flavors over and over. She also didn’t understand our health concerns over non-organic, MSG and chemical additives to food.
We wanted a chef that ‘got’ us and how we wanted to eat.
In the short time that we’ve been here, we’ve singled out some of our favorite restaurants that served organic, raw, mainly vegetarian food and thought “Wouldn’t it be great just to get a cook from one of these restaurants?” So we started asking managers, cooks and servers if they knew anyone that worked here in the past that was looking for a job. It took one week before we had any luck, and luck’s name was Purnama.We quickly hired her hoping that the food was naturally flavorful and healthy.
Luck would have it that she is amazing. She has worked at one of the top health food restaurants in Bali for the past 7 years and can make anything on their menu, from hummus to homemade ravioli and delicious spinach and rice gnocchi. The first week, we set a menu for ourselves and each dish was mouthwatering and uber-healthy. Now, she just makes meals for us and we have no idea what we’ll be eating, but it’s always good.
Our personal chef is responsible for handling all the menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and kitchen cleanup. All we have to do is come home, eat and then she cleans up. Most people think that hiring a personal chef is reserved for the wealthy or celebrities, but living abroad gives us the ability to hire a full time chef.
We are also less tempted to eat out knowing that we have a fully flavorful and delicious meal waiting for us at home. Each meal we eat out normally costs us $22 for the four of us, which is so very reasonable, but it adds up if you eat out once per day or more. Eating out also requires a lot of time: time to get to the restaurant, order, wait for your food, eat and then pay and go home. Especially with little kids, I don’t want to spend my time waiting. We rarely eat out during the week, knowing that we can make up for it on Sunday. On Sunday we try new restaurants and indulge in them since it’s a treat for us. It makes the experience all the more special. I would venture to guess that we’d be eating out at least once every 2 days minimum, which equates to $90-120/week. Plus, we’d be responsible for cooking the rest of our meals and buying our food. That savings more than pays for all our groceries and our cooks salary.
I’ve found that without the mental bustle of everyday domestic duties, I’ve been able to focus on my business, yoga, children and my husband. My business has already reaped a 15% increase in sales with the little bit of focus I’ve been able to put towards it in these 4 weeks. My mind is calmer when I go to a regular yoga class and participate in meditation. I can join a 2 hour yoga class without stressing about getting back to feed my family. It’s already being taken care of. And, best of all, my children receive a more present mother that is able to focus on them without thinking of her to-do list (at least most of the time). I won’t get into how great it’s been for our marital relationship ; )
believe know that diet can cure most disease. The typical standard American diet (nicknamed SAD for a reason) is based on processed food-like substances instead of whole organic foods. In a busy lifestyle, people want convenience and processed foods are quick, cheap and easy. They may be nutrient deficient, but when you’re on the go, that isn’t something most people think about.
Having a personal chef that knows how we want to eat allows us to remain healthy by eating proper, fresh foods for every meal of the day. When we are out doing stuff, instead of grabbing something on the go, we know that a fresh meal is being prepared for us at home. We’ve never eaten so much GREEN stuff before and we love it. It makes are bodies feel great!
Wow…Sundays we really feel just how much we love having a personal chef. What? A personal chef? Yes. The luxuries of having a personal chef aren’t reserved for the wealthy and famous. Our normal family of 4 is taking full advantage of staying healthy with a personal chef in Bali.
Sunday is her day off and we usually scrap together a small breakfast and then go out to eat or order in for the rest of the day. We haven’t forgotten how to cook, we just choose not to.
This is exactly how lax you get when you have an incredible personal chef.
This is our second chef. The first one we hired cooked delicious food, but it was only Indonesian food and we were quickly bored with the same flavors over and over. She also didn’t understand our health concerns over non-organic, MSG and chemical additives to food.
We wanted a chef that ‘got’ us and how we wanted to eat.
In the short time that we’ve been here, we’ve singled out some of our favorite restaurants that served organic, raw, mainly vegetarian food and thought “Wouldn’t it be great just to get a cook from one of these restaurants?” So we started asking managers, cooks and servers if they knew anyone that worked here in the past that was looking for a job. It took one week before we had any luck, and luck’s name was Purnama.We quickly hired her hoping that the food was naturally flavorful and healthy.
Luck would have it that she is amazing. She has worked at one of the top health food restaurants in Bali for the past 7 years and can make anything on their menu, from hummus to homemade ravioli and delicious spinach and rice gnocchi. The first week, we set a menu for ourselves and each dish was mouthwatering and uber-healthy. Now, she just makes meals for us and we have no idea what we’ll be eating, but it’s always good.
Fresh Spinach and Rice Gnocchi
Advantages of having a personal chef
There are so many advantages that our family gains from having a personal cook.Our chef saves us money
It’s been two weeks since our cook has been with us and our total grocery bill has been $80 for 2 weeks of 3 meals/day for 6 days/week for the four of us. As mentioned above, Purnama knows just how much of everything to buy so there is little to no waste. She also knows where to go for the best, freshest produce and has great contacts with the local organic growers.
Eggplant and Almond Enchiladas with a salad
Convenience & Productivity
Part of my definition of success is to get others to do what I don’t want to do or don’t know how to do. It’s the ultimate convenience. I outsource things in my business, like graphics, some web design and marketing activities. Those are activities that I would rather not be doing with my time. I have done the same with my lifestyle. I don’t want to spend hours per day shopping, preparing, cooking and cleaning when someone else can do it for me at such a reasonable cost. The time this affords me is spent on my current best use: playing with my children, working, reading, getting a massage or sleeping. It’s a luxury few can afford in more western nations, but the cost in Indonesia is very reasonable.I’ve found that without the mental bustle of everyday domestic duties, I’ve been able to focus on my business, yoga, children and my husband. My business has already reaped a 15% increase in sales with the little bit of focus I’ve been able to put towards it in these 4 weeks. My mind is calmer when I go to a regular yoga class and participate in meditation. I can join a 2 hour yoga class without stressing about getting back to feed my family. It’s already being taken care of. And, best of all, my children receive a more present mother that is able to focus on them without thinking of her to-do list (at least most of the time). I won’t get into how great it’s been for our marital relationship ; )
Every meal is fresh and there is no food waste
Having worked in a busy restaurant where the focus is on fresh, organic food, our chef buys fresh ingredients everyday and knows exactly how much to make. We rarely have leftovers. When we have friends over for dinner, we just tell her to make extra plates and sure enough, there is plenty of food yet no leftovers. In seven years working at a restaurant, she has mastered portion control and just how much of an ingredient is needed to make the dishes. Therefore, we have no leftovers sitting in the fridge for days on end spoiling. Less food waste also means that our food budget is low.
The colors in the salad are just mesmerizing!
Entertaining if fun again
Having friends over for dinner or lunch is a no stress affair. We just tell our cook how many more people there will be and she adjusts the amount of food she is making. We are able to enjoy our friends with undivided attention since our chef is doing the cooking, cleaning and serving. It makes entertaining relaxing again.Most important of all…It’s our health insurance
I’m a firm believer that most chronic disease starts with the way we treat our bodies. Our diet has a profound impact on how well our bodies function. IHaving a personal chef that knows how we want to eat allows us to remain healthy by eating proper, fresh foods for every meal of the day. When we are out doing stuff, instead of grabbing something on the go, we know that a fresh meal is being prepared for us at home. We’ve never eaten so much GREEN stuff before and we love it. It makes are bodies feel great!
Miss I enjoys a fresh veggie curry
How much does it cost?
Monkey Forest is a lush forest sanctuary of nature right in the heart of Ubud. It’s hard to miss and provides a nice break from Ubud shopping and dodging motorbikes. We visited it our first week here and recommend it for adults and children.
The Monkey Forest is not a tourist gimmick. Although you pay to enter ($2 for adults), the forest is owned by the village of Padangtegal and your entry fee helps to preserve the art and culture of the village. It also preserves the forest for future generations and helps maintain it.
As we passed the entry to the forest, the canopy enveloped us in a nice, cool darkness with huge banyon trees and a over-abundance of monkeys. Aged males, breast-feeding females, sprightly babies, frolicking bands of teenagers – it’s delightful and intriguing.
We played with the monkeys then took a rest and just observed them climbing, walking and harassing other tourists for bananas. We didn’t purchase bananas to feed them, but I still had a monkey jump on me. It was a really cool opportunity to feel his feet and hands, which were really soft. I didn’t feel threatened, but there have been instances where the monkeys have bitten people. So, before you tease a monkey, think about the consequences and just give them the darn fruit.
The monkeys are running freely throughout the park; there are no cages. They gather in packs in various places throughout the park, so it is easy to spot them and take photos.
There are temples in the forest, but we were more interested in watching monkeys.
Alternately, if you don’t want that personal of a monkey experience and the vast quantity of monkeys freaks you out, there is a nice walking path along the side of Monkey Forest. There are shops, restaurants and monkeys…but just not a concentration of them.
My recommendation is to go to into the forest and then stop at Coffee and Copper Restaurant. It’s a cool place with great juices and food. Sometimes, the monkeys come inside…to steal your food. But you really don’t mind because hey, that’s a really cool story to tell all your buddies at home. “I was sitting at this restaurant enjoying a coffee and a monkey hopped on my table and….”
10,000 rph for children $1 US
Under 4 free
The Monkeys
The obvious attraction to this forest for visitors is the monkeys. The monkeys within the Sacred Monkey Forest of Padangtegal are commonly called long-tailed macaques. In Balinese Hinduism, monkeys can be the embodiment of both positive and negative forces: positive in the presence of temples and negative when they are raiding rice fields. Ha! I guess it just depends on their location and intention.
Looks like a teenager looking for something to do…like raid a rice field.
His name was “Boss”
Zen Mama with her baby.
The monkeys are running freely throughout the park; there are no cages. They gather in packs in various places throughout the park, so it is easy to spot them and take photos.
Monkey kisses. Little did I know what he was holding in his other hand. I have that effect.
Heading down to a temple
My recommendation is to go to into the forest and then stop at Coffee and Copper Restaurant. It’s a cool place with great juices and food. Sometimes, the monkeys come inside…to steal your food. But you really don’t mind because hey, that’s a really cool story to tell all your buddies at home. “I was sitting at this restaurant enjoying a coffee and a monkey hopped on my table and….”
Details: Monkey Forest in Ubud
Cost
20,000 rph for adults $2 US10,000 rph for children $1 US
Under 4 free
Tips:
“It’s my birthday. I’m going to ride elephants. And eat ice-cream. It’s my birthday.”
My boy sings, he’s excited and he’s back. He deserves this. Our ease into living in Bali was tormented by a severe ear infection that left him spiritless. The infection spread to the mastoid bone of his skull making his ear stick out in tremendous pain. He’s all good now, thanks to a lot of care and attention.Before we left Belize, we promised G an incredible birthday in Bali. I spontaneously asked if he’d like to ride elephants for his birthday. I didn’t research before hand, so I didn’t even know if Bali had elephants. (Note to all mothers: before you make yourself look like the meanest mom in the world by promising things that may not be possible…look it up first.) But it didn’t matter. He was looking forward to it and if Bali didn’t have elephants, we were heading to Thailand. It was that important.
Luckily, there are elephants in Bali and one of the best parks was only 25 minutes away from Ubud. Whew! I skated by that one.
Elephant Safari Park in Bali
The atmosphere at the park is fantastic and the park itself is meticulously kept. It’s super-clean, has perfect landscaping and looks like a 5 star place. The elephants are in great condition (especially when you see the footage of them before they were rescued) and the staff are amazingly kind to the elephants and very helpful to the guests. The staff encourages questions, feeding of the elephants, petting them and taking photos (there are no additional charges for doing any of this). The staff will even take photos for you if you have your hands full. There is also a professional photographer that will take photos that you can have on put on T-shirts, mugs and other stuff.
Before this photo was taken, the elephants circled us with their trunks. Maybe a little too close this time…happy parents, scared kids.
Elephant painting @ Elephant Safari Park, Bali
The park is not huge, which makes it a manageable day trip. After reading reviews and calculating costs, we decided to stay overnight in the park at the Elephant Safari Park Lodge.
Elephant Safari Park Lodge
A sincere welcome to the Elephant Safari Park
Upon checking in, we were handed a refreshing cool towel, a deliciously sweet welcome drink and a personalized itinerary which provided us a nice agenda of how to get the best enjoyment of our stay, when we could bathe elephants and more. It was nice to have this so we didn’t have to ask many questions of when and where to do the activities. It was all there for us. We booked a paddy room, but received a free upgrade to the Garden room, which was a nice surprise because it meant that we’d be able to get picked up by the ‘elephant taxi’ for dinner. The room was beautiful as we expected. But it was the little touches that make this place so wonderful and well thought out. The details add up to an incredible experience that make it worth the cost.
The 5 star details
The decorative tiles in the center of all stairs are non-slip, including the bathroom. The fruit basket filled with G’s favorite: passion fruit. The welcome drink. The refreshing towel. The ability to charge everything to your room. The free toiletry kit, which included toothbrushes, a razor, and more. The steamy, full pressure shower. The carved elephant foot bases on the beds.
The decorative tiles in the center of all stairs are non-slip, including the bathroom. The fruit basket filled with G’s favorite: passion fruit. The welcome drink. The refreshing towel. The ability to charge everything to your room. The free toiletry kit, which included toothbrushes, a razor, and more. The steamy, full pressure shower. The carved elephant foot bases on the beds.
And of course, an elephant towel in the bathroom.
Dinner amongst palm trees and elephants with a bright full moon above us.
@ Elephant Safari Park
@ Elephant Safari Park
G – Four years old on the 4th of July underneath a pink moon.
We’ve stayed at some really nice resorts and never have we had better service than at the Elephant Safari Park Lodge. This place is top-notch. We went to bed, excited for the next day of bathing and riding elephants.
Included activities by staying at the Elephant Safari Park Lodge
Bathing and Riding Elephants
We were thrilled to wake up to the sounds of birds in our Garden room. It is a 2 minute, short walk to the Mammoths Head Bar where the breakfast buffet was set up. It was great with a wide variety of food to please all the international palettes that visit. Now, the part we’ve been waiting for and the reason we stayed at the Lodge: the bathing and riding of elephants.The staff really want you to help bathe the elephants and it’s not to be taken lightly. Literally, you have to really, really scrub them hard to get all the dirt off. We couldn’t get enough of being so close to these amazing creatures.
G was a little timid to bathe this huge creature.
But Miss I loved it! She gives Lady Gigi a little scrub.
A happy girl, cleaned and ready to go!
Ready for a swim with the elephant
Padding for riding the elephants.
Feeling like royalty riding the elephants.
My Thoughts on Asian Elephants
The elephants are here because their homelands are being torn down for agricultural use. 16,000 acres of their land in Sumatra has been reduced to less than 200. Elephants eat over 250 kg (500 lbs) of food everyday and, in their quest to find food, they start trampling and eating farmland. The farmers grow angry and hurt or kill the elephants. It’s a sad example of us humans trampling and taking over the earth. We simply are not willing to share space and honor the creatures on this planet. Elephants need land and land in Asia is becoming scarce. An elephant can destroy six months of income for a farmer in one, single night. It’s understandable why the farmers are upset.It is interesting to note that in Asia the elephant is quite revered. The elephant image can be found in temples, on beer cans, weaved into the finest silks and carved into furniture. The elephant Lord Ganesha is the god of wisdom, trade and prosperity. It seems that the nations that revers and worships the elephant, are the very same places where they face the greatest threat.
But, this post is also about my son’s fourth birthday and in honor of him…
Happy 4th Birthday G!
Born on the fourth of July, G is my firecracker baby. I couldn’t have asked to be a mother to a more beautiful child. He challenges me in ways I did not know possible, all to make me a better, more loving person.G has mastered the art of negotiation, trading, and saying simple I love you’s at the most tender moments. This past year he’s lived in Costa Rica, Belize and now Bali. He knows how to adapt and feel at home quickly. He’s also learned several languages this year and is turning to be quite a linguist, often times teaching me words (some of them are made up, but his confidence in ‘knowing’ them is super). He’s a sweet boy, especially to babies, and takes care of the few toys that he has very well. Currently, he enjoys writing his letters, running, legos, painting, more legos, and, at times, tormenting his little sister. If asked whether he wants to do anything vs riding on the motor scooter, the motor scooter always wins. He rides in front singing songs the entire way. We adore him.
G – totally glorious in his four-ness
Video of Elephant Safari Park in Bali
I haven’t written in my blog in a while partly because I’ve been lost in my own head lately. I’m supposed to be absorbing culture and having this amazing adventure discovering Bali, but right now I’m in my own mind trying to figure out… stuff. Nothing concrete, just a spasm of mental, emotional and spiritual energy that has me drained.
Mr. King on the other hand is relishing in living here. We’re a bit at odds. He wants to ‘settle down’ and redecorate our villa since it will be our home for the next year or two. He’s looking for a creative outlet and is leaning on what he knows how to do…improve stuff.
He’s good at it. And he loves it.
When we bought our home in Colorado on 3 acres, we looked at it from the road and said “It’s the ugliest house we’ve ever seen, let’s buy it”. And for the next 3 years we systematically spent loads of money to tear down walls and upgrade it to luxurious standards, complete with quartz counter tops, heated floors, and towel warmers. We spent countless hours at tile shops putting together our own designs and basking in the creative energy that fulfilled us (while it emptied our bank account). We’d finish a project and for the next week sit in the completed room and have a glass of wine marveling at the beauty and creativity. Yes, even the bathroom.
We felt fulfilled in doing that. We did all the work ourselves, using tools and our hands to shape tile and wood into pleasing, perfectly fitted kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms.
So Mr. King is craving being creative again. It doesn’t come easy when you consider our upbringing was more practical than creative. Creativity was a waste of time or just a side “for fun” type of experience. The lessons we learned growing up where more along the lines of “Life is Hard, just push though it” or “Hard work is the key”. We spent our childhood and adulthood being productive, learning there is a right way and a wrong way and that the end product is the goal, not reveling in the joy of simply being and creating.
I want my husband to be fulfilled creatively, I’m just not sure I want to put in the mental and financial commitment of buying different furniture, bedspreads, and paint. Right now, that doesn’t matter to me. I do love living with beautiful things around me that we have created, but I don’t want my creativity to be residing with this house.
I never acknowledged my creative side. I studied science, Biology, Medicine, and Physics, you know, stuff that could be proven and had a right answer, only to find that it is majorly faulty. It was only after graduate school (where I studied Physiology and Diabetes) that I took a job in sales and marketing and was given a handsome monthly allowance that I discovered how creatively I could spend it. I hosted theme parties for doctors offices, made them beautiful baskets, took nurses out for spa treatments and essentially used my creativity to distinguish myself, er, my company from the others. It worked. I was making more money at age 23 than most people double my age. I gained energy with the new projects and ideas that I envisioned. That was my first, obvious clue that there was more to life that doing as your told or what others want. It was my ideas and giving them expression that was key (albeit, for corporate gain).
Irony.
Even I have momentary gaps of wandering and wondering. This is one of them. I’m confident that, like past times, I will emerge a much stronger and confident being, but while in the midst of transformation, its enduring.
I love watching my son and daughter paint, draw and make a mess of the coffee table, floor, their bellies and faces. They can cover 6 sheets of paper with beautiful colors in no time. To encourage and inspire us, we’ve created an art wall that will be filled by all of our creations, including mine and Mr. Kings.
G’s Art
G’s paintings have developed from slashes of a paintbrush to bright, colorful works. He’s currently painting large ovals filled with all sorts of colors and creatures. We’ve allowed them full access to all the paints, oil pastels and paper they need to do what they want, when they want. G also has a mastery of language, albeit, sometimes his own. He constantly teaches me new ‘words’ in Indonesian, Spanish or Kriol. Surprisingly, even though they are made up words, they do have the same intonations of the parent language. He’s using his creativity and mind to develop a set of skills. He’s proud when he can remember the word for a cow in Spanish, Indonesian or Polish. It’s satisfying to watch his pleasure.
Miss I’s Art
At two years old, Miss I is a performer. She sings and dances her way into our hearts. Lately, she’s become a little louder than normal in her singing and we’re glad we don’t have walls to contain the sound. She expresses songs in various ways, like a Rock ‘n Roll version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where she screams with a deep gusto the last word of each line. She is also role-playing with her doll. She changes the baby’s diaper, puts her to sleep, loves, kisses and even wants her to breast feed from me. In doing so, she’s using her imagination to develop life skills.
Nothing is more important than learning to think creatively – learning to come up with innovative solutions to the unexpected situations that will continually arise in our lives. Encouraging this natural creativity and love of learning and experimenting is one of the reasons we are looking into un-schooling or world schooling our children.
I’m confident that I’ll climb out of this epilepsy of swarming thoughts. In the meantime, I’m looking at paint swatches and painting reams of paper with my children.
Mr. King on the other hand is relishing in living here. We’re a bit at odds. He wants to ‘settle down’ and redecorate our villa since it will be our home for the next year or two. He’s looking for a creative outlet and is leaning on what he knows how to do…improve stuff.
He’s good at it. And he loves it.
When we bought our home in Colorado on 3 acres, we looked at it from the road and said “It’s the ugliest house we’ve ever seen, let’s buy it”. And for the next 3 years we systematically spent loads of money to tear down walls and upgrade it to luxurious standards, complete with quartz counter tops, heated floors, and towel warmers. We spent countless hours at tile shops putting together our own designs and basking in the creative energy that fulfilled us (while it emptied our bank account). We’d finish a project and for the next week sit in the completed room and have a glass of wine marveling at the beauty and creativity. Yes, even the bathroom.
Same bathroom…we used our creativity to space plan and design a new old home.
So Mr. King is craving being creative again. It doesn’t come easy when you consider our upbringing was more practical than creative. Creativity was a waste of time or just a side “for fun” type of experience. The lessons we learned growing up where more along the lines of “Life is Hard, just push though it” or “Hard work is the key”. We spent our childhood and adulthood being productive, learning there is a right way and a wrong way and that the end product is the goal, not reveling in the joy of simply being and creating.
I want my husband to be fulfilled creatively, I’m just not sure I want to put in the mental and financial commitment of buying different furniture, bedspreads, and paint. Right now, that doesn’t matter to me. I do love living with beautiful things around me that we have created, but I don’t want my creativity to be residing with this house.
Acknowledging a Creative Side
There is no greater gift than that of self-expression. And for us, being here, living in Ubud, creativity is off the charts. The art is fantastic and the skill level is mastery. It’s intimidating. Especially for us creative newbies.I never acknowledged my creative side. I studied science, Biology, Medicine, and Physics, you know, stuff that could be proven and had a right answer, only to find that it is majorly faulty. It was only after graduate school (where I studied Physiology and Diabetes) that I took a job in sales and marketing and was given a handsome monthly allowance that I discovered how creatively I could spend it. I hosted theme parties for doctors offices, made them beautiful baskets, took nurses out for spa treatments and essentially used my creativity to distinguish myself, er, my company from the others. It worked. I was making more money at age 23 than most people double my age. I gained energy with the new projects and ideas that I envisioned. That was my first, obvious clue that there was more to life that doing as your told or what others want. It was my ideas and giving them expression that was key (albeit, for corporate gain).
Who are You?
Creativity is about expressing your Self, no one else. But, most people have been doing what others want for so long that they no longer know who THEY are or what THEY want to do. Thus the prolific swell of ‘find yourself’ courses, discover/reclaim your life blogs, and the live deliberately pep talks that catch your attention and dollar by selling hope that you’ll become a solid, authentic human being.Irony.
Even I have momentary gaps of wandering and wondering. This is one of them. I’m confident that, like past times, I will emerge a much stronger and confident being, but while in the midst of transformation, its enduring.
Learning Creativity from Children
Children are natural creators. They are constantly designing, constructing, creating and experimenting. They develop their own ideas, try them, test them, find different ways of doing things, look for suggestions from others and usually generate new ideas from it. It’s my job as a parent to step out of the way and let them blossom. It’s difficult at times, especially when our own agenda is at odds with theirs.I love watching my son and daughter paint, draw and make a mess of the coffee table, floor, their bellies and faces. They can cover 6 sheets of paper with beautiful colors in no time. To encourage and inspire us, we’ve created an art wall that will be filled by all of our creations, including mine and Mr. Kings.
G’s Art
G’s paintings have developed from slashes of a paintbrush to bright, colorful works. He’s currently painting large ovals filled with all sorts of colors and creatures. We’ve allowed them full access to all the paints, oil pastels and paper they need to do what they want, when they want. G also has a mastery of language, albeit, sometimes his own. He constantly teaches me new ‘words’ in Indonesian, Spanish or Kriol. Surprisingly, even though they are made up words, they do have the same intonations of the parent language. He’s using his creativity and mind to develop a set of skills. He’s proud when he can remember the word for a cow in Spanish, Indonesian or Polish. It’s satisfying to watch his pleasure.
See the blooming happening here?
At two years old, Miss I is a performer. She sings and dances her way into our hearts. Lately, she’s become a little louder than normal in her singing and we’re glad we don’t have walls to contain the sound. She expresses songs in various ways, like a Rock ‘n Roll version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where she screams with a deep gusto the last word of each line. She is also role-playing with her doll. She changes the baby’s diaper, puts her to sleep, loves, kisses and even wants her to breast feed from me. In doing so, she’s using her imagination to develop life skills.
Nothing is more important than learning to think creatively – learning to come up with innovative solutions to the unexpected situations that will continually arise in our lives. Encouraging this natural creativity and love of learning and experimenting is one of the reasons we are looking into un-schooling or world schooling our children.
4 Benefits to Being Creative
Contented, Connected and Fulfilled
The beauty of enhancing our creativity is that we can learn to look at the world in a different perspective. Being creative is not only about art or music. It’s the way we approach life and our attitude. It’s about connecting with our own inner self, others and our spiritual nature. Adults have the tendency to become too structured. As we grow older let us always remember to keep on being creative and to continually challenge ourselves to grow and become better. And that is the very reason we travel and keep adventuring around the world.I’m confident that I’ll climb out of this epilepsy of swarming thoughts. In the meantime, I’m looking at paint swatches and painting reams of paper with my children.
As part of its third program at the Joyce Theater, Pilobolus unveiled a work that broke the company’s artistic mold. For “Contradance,” receiving its New York premiere on Monday evening, two former dancers choreographed a production without the assistance of one of Pilobolus’s artistic directors.
Matt Kent and Renée Jaworski (the group’s rehearsal director and artistic associate) tell a story of two misfits who find a connection one soulful night. “Contradance” also features music by Dan Zanes, who leads a family-oriented, Grammy-winning band. While the work doesn’t herald a fresh choreographic voice within the Pilobolus family, the pairing of Mr. Zanes’s music and Liz Prince’s costumes lends a certain dreaminess to the production.
The dance for six — it was created in collaboration with Winston Dynamite Brown, Eriko Jimbo, Jun Kuribayashi, Nile H. Russell, Annika Sheaff and Christopher Whitney, as well as others — focuses on an outcast (Mr. Kuribayashi, who is never too far from his rocking chair) and a demure young woman (Ms. Jimbo). Her friends, who clamp kazoos in their mouths like cigars, try to prevent her from getting too close to the stranger. The couple nevertheless find love: as Mr. Zanes puts it, “two misfits on the endless sea, drifting so easy and free.”
Eventually, the boy-meets-girl routine grows tiresome; often Mr. Kent and Ms. Jaworski don’t have enough material to fill the music. Poised on the rocking chair — which, at one point, becomes something of a boat — the couple sway back and forth. Ms. Jimbo holds a tattered umbrella and suddenly, held aloft by the other dancers, she and Mr. Kuribayashi soar through the night.
In the end, “Contradance” is too naïve for adult consumption. (There’s also something about the dance that resembles a Kindle commercial.)
Far more enthralling is “Gnomen,” a dance for four men choreographed in 1997 by Robby Barnett and Jonathan Wolken, in collaboration with the original dancers. On Monday Mr. Brown, Mr. Kuribayashi, Mr. Russell and Mr. Whitney — as if linked by strands of silk — moved through rigorous, sculptural positions with a startling airiness. The theme of an outsider is present, but here the result has weight.
Pilobolus continues through Aug. 7 at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800, joyce.org.
HOBOKEN, N.J. — John McCauley, gaunt and scraggly, clutched an electric guitar at Maxwell’s here on Monday night, finger-picking a lone song, “Houston, TX,” by himself. His band, Deer Tick, had spent the past hour digging into roadhouse country and rawboned rock ’n’ roll, with a bluntly effective fervor. This solo interlude seemed like an unscheduled detour, announced on the fly. But it was a clear, vital moment in an unfocused show.
“Houston, TX” comes from “Born on Flag Day” (Partisan), Deer Tick’s winningly ragged 2009 album, and in the original arrangement it’s a lilting shuffle, offered in tribute to the Bakersfield sound. Here, Mr. McCauley made it more desperate, nearly unmoored. His voice — tart, coarse, with a liberal pinch of twang — felt painfully exposed, adding weight to his lyrics about cutting loose from an exhausted love affair.
“There’s nothing left,” he sang, “and I am sure that it’s a sign/That maybe I’m about as good as gone.” The shift from “sure” to “maybe” in those lines felt awkwardly true to the song, and so did a later jolt of self-reproach: “I ain’t gonna talk like a gentleman, no/‘Cause I’m sick of always letting myself down.” Pulling back from the microphone as if repulsed, Mr. McCauley yelped that last word again: “Down! Down!”
Since forming Deer Tick in Providence, R.I., late in 2004, Mr. McCauley has been both its engine and its engineer. Last month brought “The Black Dirt Sessions” (Partisan), another album stocked with his cagey, questioning songs. But Deer Tick, whose current tour will end on Aug. 13 at Webster Hall in Manhattan, seems to be in some kind of flux: this show included just a handful of tunes from the new release, most of them tossed off or hurried through. And the band’s frontman often took a backseat.
He surrendered the wheel mostly to Ian O’Neil, the other guitarist in Deer Tick, and increasingly its other songwriter. “Hope Is Big,” one of Mr. O’Neil’s better songs, took the form of a heaving country waltz. Elsewhere he leaned more toward snarling honky-tonk, as on a stomping cover of Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene.” Mr. O’Neil was merely serviceable as a singer, which at least put him ahead of the band’s Amish-bearded drummer, Dennis Ryan, whose take on Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” was pure stunt work, a floppy salute to Jack Black.
Stunts can be fine, and Deer Tick delivered a few that worked: a furious romp through ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses,” for one, and a perfectly smarmy alto saxophone solo by Rob Crowell, the band’s keyboardist, on “Ashamed.” That song had the crowd singing along with its chorus: “And oh, what a crying shame, what a crying shame/What we became.”
It would be wrong and too facile to apply that lamentation to Deer Tick, which has a lot going for it as a band. But with the way things are headed, Mr. McCauley might consider a side project: solo acoustic, perhaps, so he could move along without actually moving on.
Deer Tick will appear on Wednesday at Ottobar in Baltimore, on Thursday at the Rock and Roll Hotel in Washington, and on Friday and Saturday at Floydfest in Floyd, Va.; deertickmusic.com.
Listen. Listen harder. That’s what the British playwright Howard Barker needs you to do during “Gary the Thief” and “Plevna: Meditations on Hatred,” his two short, dense plays produced by the Potomac Theater Project/NYC at Atlantic Stage 2.
Theater is elastic, he reminds us, and proceeds to stretch our definitions of it. Mr. Barker, also a poet, describes his work as a Theater of Catastrophe in which, as it says in the program, “no attempt is made to satisfy any demand for clarity or the deceptive simplicity of a single message.”
Indeed. These two pieces, written as poems and delivered as monologues, come at you in a rush and can be fragmentary and elusive. Don’t be surprised if you miss things. But also don’t be surprised if Mr. Barker’s blunt lyricism lingers in your mind.
“I hate the weak/And whimper in the presence/Of the strong,” says Gary the Thief. A working-class hoodlum, Gary kills a baby, goes to prison (with its “dirty glamour attaching to/Insane and paltry acts”) and is courted by powerful people. At the end — impossibility of spoiler alert — the “cold has riddled his youth/And the ice has quarried his teeth,” but he sets off to be a prophet.
Plot, obviously, doesn’t make “Gary the Thief” run. (Good thing: chunks of it passed me right by.) The poetry — slippery and impressionistic — does, and the play, receiving its world premiere in this production, directed by Richard Romagnoli, is lucky to have the actor Robert Emmet Lunney to deliver it.
Mr. Lunney makes visceral what might have been abstract. He varies the colors of his voice and his accent: he can be prim, even schoolmarmish when he narrates, but as Gary the Thief he has a Cockney swagger and impacted rage. Gary’s stare is ferocious. (Reader, he scared me.)
Mr. Lunney, in a dark suit, performs on a bare black set with only a hint of theatrical artifice: a wry proscenium arch near the back of the stage. It’s all very spare and tasteful — he seems like a pearl nestled in a velvet jewel case — but it creates a respectful hush that tames the play.
Still, Mr. Lunney carries the day, making “Gary” the more dramatically satisfying of the two pieces on this 50-minute program. In “Plevna: Meditations on Hatred,” receiving its New York premiere, Mr. Romagnoli also keeps the stage bare, save for a few chairs. But here he has a conceit, which might be trite if it were more insistent.
For this monologue about war and the nasty things civilians do, the actor, Alex Draper, wears a tux and brandishes a highball glass. He surveys and anatomizes the wreckage of battle as if pointing out the vomit after a drunken party.
Plevna was the site of a siege in 1877 in the Russo-Turkish war. Not that Mr. Barker tells you that and not that he means his play, with its shifting perspectives, to be restricted to one historical event.
Mr. Draper, though, doesn’t have Mr. Lunney’s range, and his slow build to anger seems a bit mechanical. Squint, and he’s just a guy reciting poetry onstage. But that poetry compels. Passages stick: “Who was drowned by the snow/Which rose to the mouth of the sleeping sentry/The thaw will show.”
“Gary the Thief” and “Plevna: Meditations on Hatred” continue through July 31 at Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West 16th Street, Chelsea; (212) 279-4200, ticketcentral.com.
