Conquering Summer Boredom

"Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity." 

Robert M. Pirsig

"Mom, I booooored!" Alaina, my ten-year-old daughter proclaimed, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. 

Isaac, my twelve-year-old son and I looked up from our books we were quietly reading on the couch. 

"Find a book to read." I offered.

"I already read all of my library books," Alaina volleyed. 

"How about a puzzle?" I suggested.

"Make a loom bracelet? Draw? Write a story? Play with the dogs? Work on your fairy garden?"

None of these options appealed to Alaina.

"You could clean your room, go through your backpack from school, fold laundry, pull weeds." I reminded her. Essentially, I shared parts of our bottomless to-do list. 

Alaina crinkled her nose in distaste.

"I guess I'll play ALONE... Can you play Monopoly by yourself?"

She trudged into the dining room, adjacent to were Isaac and I were reading, her loud sighs interrupting our silence. I knew that my quiet reading time was over. 

I grabbed a stack of old magazines and headed over to the dining room table.

"Want to find some poetry in these magazines with me?"

She looked at me quizzically. Although we have made found poetry before, it had been a while.

I began paging through magazines, snipping words and phrases that caught my eye:

welcome

beauty

grace

gentle

glow

confidence

"Find the words you like and arrange them. We can make poems based on what's already published." 

She paged through magazines. I paged through magazines. 

Snip. Snip. Snip. 

Pretty soon the table top was covered in words and phrases. 

Alaina played with the arrangement of words and phrases, gushing with excitement as we created poetry. She read the lines out loud, often pausing to admire our work. 

Found Poem #1

Here are the lines from the first found poem Alaina and I created together: 

Welcome confidence,

Love that everyone has a different story...

Live your best life reading,

Begin feeling good, gentle, glow,

It's about time you make noise.

Found Poem #2

Here are the lines from the second found poem we created together:

Welcome

to 

simple

beauty

Go!

Make a big deal out of little moments

The here. The now. The ready.

Found Poem #3

Below are the lines from the third found poem we created:

One light as air, making style with intelligence,

the rainbow in your life,

Embrace your power to light,

Be bold. Be brave. Be better. Be beautiful!

The secret to joy and laughter is 

good news.

We just finished the first full week into summer vacation. Boredom is inevitable, but I am determined that we won't spend the majority of summer watching Netflix or playing video games. Although I am always drawn to a good book, I love spending time with my children, especially when we make things.

Celebrate this week with Ruth Ayres!