Carlos the Porter / the Artist

Every Tuesday I watch Carlos in his grey pants and shirt pushing his two-tier cleaning cart up and down the beige carpeted aisles on the 17th floor of The New School.  Short with a paunch and wire rimmed glasses, the older, grey haired man rarely speaks a word or flashes a smile.  To the writers, designers and programmers working in this office, he seems as invisible as the specks of dust that he wipes away.

But Carlos has a secret.  

He confided in me that upstairs, in the conference room on the 18th floor, in the lower corner of a white board, there's a drawing.  Sketched in dry erase marker is a scenic landscape far removed from cubicles and computers.

The artist is Carlos, and everyday he checks if his drawing has endured the intrusion of arrows, bullet points and scribbles from strategic meetings and brainstorming sessions.

Carlos quietly told me, with cleaning cloth in hand, that since he was 12  growing up in Puerto Rico,  he knew he wanted to be an artist.  He always sees images around him.

"Even in cracks in the wall, I see a picture," he said.

He paints landscapes and portraits at home everyday, except Mondays.  That's his day of rest.

"I eat dinner with my wife, watch TV on those days," he explained, "but Tuesdays, I start painting again."

Carlos the cleaning man is Carlos the creative man.

If he can make the time -- and find the space on the corner of a whiteboard - why can't we?

What would be your superpower?

In a child's world, adults know the answers.  Our kids ask us questions...and we always know the answers, or at the very least, toss off  a response for that moment. 

One day, I was stumped...by a very simple question asked by my then eight-year old son.

"Mom, if you could have a superpower, what would it be?"   From the serious look on his face and tone of his voice, this question was an important one.  He had been mulling this over for quite some time.

Frankly, I was stumped.

I realized that my adult brain rewired itself to adeptly handle mountains of details - from computer passwords to business deadlines to the release date for the next Harry Potter book - that somewhere along the way...my childlike imagination needed rebooting.

"Well, I guess flying would be cool...but being invisible has its advantages," I slowly began.   He quickly flipped through other options..running at lightning speed, reading other people's thoughts, scanning with x-ray eyes.

Today, I told this story to a colleague, who chuckled.  Then asked, "So what did you finally answer?  What was your superpower?"

I am still stumped...still rewiring my brain to let it wildly imagine.

May be it's time to lug out the packed away Legos and just play for a while. 

How did you get where you are now?

The question reminds me of that old joke...How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, baby, practice.  Haha.

But what I'm wondering about today are those conscious, creative thoughts that brought you to where you are today -- at this job, with these friends, raising this family, pursuing that passion.  Perhaps creativity wasn't the instigator - maybe you're just bumbling along, like the rest of humanity.

Yet how can we spark creative thoughts that can open the doors to what we want - for ourselves, our society, our world.

One creative thinker who deserves a "shout out" is the first follower on this blog - Lori McManus.  Many years ago, I hired her to work with me at New York City's glorious (and unfinished) Cathedral of St. John the Divine. 

Sure, she was bright, eager, and personable - all necessary qualifications.  But so were all the other candidates.  What set Lori  apart from the pack -- and I clearly remember thinking this at the time -- was her big, bold, creative move to uproot from the Midwest, leave family and friends, and create a radically different life in the Big Apple.  Wow - that took courage. Not sure I would have done it. Congratulations, you're hired girl!

Hmmmm...maybe creativity and courage go hand-in-hand.

What do you think about?

If you took all the thoughts that you had in a week and separated them into piles -- as if you were cleaning out a closet or a garage -- you'd probably be surprised at the results.  Big piles of thoughts would stack up about work, family, money, memories, worries for the future, kids, bills, to do lists, didn't do lists, and on and on.  But would there be a pile for ideas? Just ideas? Crazy ones, small ones, brilliant ones, why didn't I think of that before ones, and what about secret ones. Probably not.  So let's start stacking that pile.