becoming a "yes" woman

Lately I have been trying my hardest to do more stuff with my kids. To say yes when I really, really want to say no. To dig up the freshly mowed grass in the background and try to find worms, instead of making up something about how worms don't come out on Wednesdays. To throw caution to the wind and agree that an ice cream cone at 4:30pm is a great idea. 9:00am--even better. Inspired by a blog I often read, I thought, I’d give this “yes” thing a try. One out of five seemed about right. For every four times I said no, I was going to try really hard to say yes once.

It goes a little something like this:

4:57pm: “Can I have a cookie?”
No

4:59pm: “Can I watch a movie?”
No

5:05pm: “Can I kick my brother in the head?”
No

5:06pm: “Can I sleep outside tonight?”
Tempting, but no.

5:07pm: “Can I paint?”

Dang it. You got me. Sure, let’s drag out the fingerpaints at 5:oo and see just how long we can stretch 25 minutes of actually playing into 60 minutes worth of cleaning up.

I get asked a lot how I ended up in this whole photography thing. I wish I had some really great story about how I got my first camera at age 3 and have been photographing people ever since, but I just don’t. The truth is that I got into this because I couldn’t draw. In fact, not only can I not draw, but I can’t paint, sculpt, sketch, or design. Normally this wouldn’t have been a huge problem--I could have just been an accountant or something (actually, no, that wouldn’t have worked either), but everyone in my family is really, really creative. Like the kind of creative talent that goes beyond just thinking that person is talented, and more wondering if your mother somehow actually willed your siblings to inherit all of her artistic ability, leaving you with…….the ability to bake. Or talk a mile a minute. You’re off in the kitchen throwing together a box of brownies while yakking at lightning speed, and there are your brothers, playing both the guitar and the piano while writing original songs, sketching Longs Peak, and messing around with some clay that will later turn into a piece that will be mistaken for something stolen from the Guggenheim. At the same time. You know….just for fun.

And here I am with a pan of brownies.

So, I tried to paint, draw, and all of the other stuff that seems to come so naturally to them, but to me it feels a bit like trying to translate all of the Harry Potter books from French to Latin. After my first kid came along, photographing him became a creative outlet, learning about digital photography became interesting, and the rest…….is, you know, history or whatever. Really, really boring history.

But I have these great childhood memories of my mom never saying no. Can I draw flowers on the patio table with a Sharpie? Sure. Can I take apart the fence and try to build a playhouse? Yes. Even better, I can remember asking my mom things like, is this the right way to do it?, and her saying, does it seem right to you, because that’s all the matters. I grew-up with a mother who told me that every sad little art project I brought home was a masterpiece. The conversation about the adverse effects of this, and how I am still surprised when people don't think that every little thing I do is magic, is for another time.

With an insane amount of luck, my kids will have memories of me saying yes. 20% of the time.

Yesterday I said yes.