Christián Pena: Writing Within the Chaos

Tell us a little about yourself.

Hello my name is Christián. I am a writer, creative and mother of five. My partner and I are high school sweethearts and we both grew up in big families so it’s really magical that we get to surround ourselves with the madness and chaos of having a large family. We have two sons and three daughters ages 1 to 7 years old. This project has been a lot of fun for me and has helped me learn about the different ways motherhood plays a part in our creativity as humans in this experience.

Did you think of yourself as a creative kid? What does creativity look like for you these days?

I think as children, we don’t think of ourselves as anything. Children just are. The world and the adults that are there to guide them, are only facilitators and resources for children to follow their own will. So I can’t say that I thought of myself as a creative kid. Only that stories,  books and writing brought me closer to my inner self and allowed me to find my place in a world run by adults; who claimed to know it all but always seemed unsure to me. Before I could write I would hold adults hostage with my stories. Often telling make-believe adventures of riding planes (an old couch my parents placed in our backyard) and visiting my home country. My favorite was retelling an adventure of visiting Acapulco, Mexico and its beautiful beaches. Whether they listened to me or not, it did not matter. The act of telling these imaginary tales and the process of witnessing a story take shape outside of me was immensely satisfying for my five year old self.

Creativity can take on many different forms for me these days, especially with so many little children around. There are often many books on our dining table, someone is always working on a creative project, the girls are painting or cutting and pasting. My eldest son is very into building with magna tiles or legos or contraptions. Sometimes they band together to build an elaborate playscape for their toys, where everyone plays an important part in the game. We are always surrounded by this pure creative energy and it’s very motivating. I have placed my desk in the kitchen so we can work alongside the children — and also because there never seems to be enough room on the dining table. I have learned to write within the chaos, I see it as a perfect opportunity to exchange and feed off of this high creative energy of the children. When we aren’t in the midst of a sweltering summer heatwave, we spend a majority of our time in our backyard. It provides a lot of opportunities for creativity. Whether that is watching the butterflies visit our lime tree, the birds building their nests in its thorny branches in the spring or digging in the dirt —  nature is a strong creative force that we can immerse ourselves in using all of our senses.     

How did motherhood change your creative practice?

After I gave birth to my son, it took me several years to find a creative practice that felt natural to my process. For a long time I was trying to mimic an old practice that I followed very strictly before I became a mother. It took a long time to learn that being creative and a mother is all about flexibility, letting go and riding the waves of doubt and fear. A lot of times it felt forced and unfamiliar, I questioned my writing a lot then. I would put it down when in doubt and then pick it right back up for survival and a deep need to sit with my inner and higher self.

As of right now it requires a lot of surrender and trust in whatever shape or form my process takes on. There is no perfect time to sit down and write, I sort of just feel it through and know when I am in a good zone. This creative force has also spilled over into everything we do. I read poetry to the children before bed and that has turned into a daily practice for us. Not only for them but for me as well, I have never read so much poetry as I do now as a mother. In fact we read a lot, daily. As of late they request a poem and a chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, our current obsession. The To Be Read pile is extensive, there are books all over the house. One day my daughter found books under her bed and said “Mom, I found books under my bed, we have too many books you have to stop buying then.” ever since then, we just borrow from the library.

How does art enrich your life? How does being a mother enrich your art?

Motherhood and art have brought me closer to the Creatix, the Divine Feminine in all of us.  Creating a child in my body, in my womb has been one of the most spiritual and creative projects of my life. And although it has taken me a long time to reach this understanding of my journey as a mother and a writer, it has become a huge influence in my process. This merging of selves has really allowed me to be more creative. What felt like a solitary and often lonely thing, to sit down at a desk and write, has now become the thing that brings me stillness and calm. Let’s be honest, motherhood is hard. There are days when everyone is either tired or grumpy and it can be really draining trying to navigate so many emotions. The thing that gets us through though, is our ability to turn inward and find peace or calm. Oftentimes, that happens when we are quietly sitting at the table and creating something of our own. Whether that be Magna tiles, Legos or painting and drawing it's this ability to sit still for a moment and make something that brings us back to a place of calm and inner connection. There is a lot of exchange of energy and emotions when you are part of a large family, some days it can be incredibly overwhelming to try to find your place in such a large group of people. Right now during this climate disaster that is the summer heat wave in Phoenix, these moments of creativity are really essential to our survival. The books, the drawing and painting, the Legos are great to have when we cannot go outside when it's 115 degrees.

What do you hope your kids will learn about creativity from you?

If there is anything that I want my children to learn about creativity from me is that it is innately human. That it is our right and will to be creative beings, it is our most natural state. All beings are creative and creativity looks different for everyone. Their dad works on cars and that is a completely different process and form,  from what I do and what they are usually doing themselves. Watching him work on them and discuss how cars work and what it takes to diagnose and fix an issue in a system — requires a lot of creative thinking. His process is quite different from the children’s art projects be that painting or building forts, or my writing but it is the same force we tap into. My hope is that, just like we know that the lime tree always blooms in the spring, art will always be a part of who they are as humans. 

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Christián Pena is a writer, creative and mother of five. She contributes to the Substack La Cuenta, and you can subscribe to her personal Substack So As to Not Get Lost here.

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Hi! I’m Heidi. Writer. Editor. Mother. I’m interviewing 100 creative mothers, because I believe the more we see other mothers making beauty and meaning in small moments, the more we will be inspired to make our own kind of art, whatever that may look like during this intense season of life. Support the project by sharing with a friend.