Creative Restrictions

Creative restraint,
Why I like writing haikus,
For simplicity.

I also love writing parody songs, Weird Al style, for the same reason. You get a melody and a rhyming structure and then it’s up to you to choose a new theme and fill in the blanks. I first started writing game development parody songs after this interaction with my manager:

Manager: “Ok JC, the theme of next fortnight’s 1:1 meeting is your Q3 quarterly conversation.”
JC: “Can it be under the sea themed?”
Manager: (chuckles) “If you finish your PowerBI course by then, fine.”

I finished my PowerBI course.

After that meeting, I decided to change the lyrics from “Under the Sea” to “Reviewing Q3.” I performed it in a meeting room with my manager. He laugh-cried when I got to an unexpected kazoo solo.

My quarterly review became my quarterly revue.

If someone asked me to write a song from scratch, I’d struggle: like being confronted by a blank page of a new document. Mr. Squiggle never started with a blank canvas and we appreciated his creativity all the more for it.

What does all of this have to do with being a Marriage Celebrant?

Everything!

You never start with a blank canvas when crafting a wedding ceremony because you are celebrating the story of two unique people who have their own unique relationship and experience of the world. Their relationship is like the pre-drawn lines on Mr Squiggle’s canvas or the melody and rhyming structure of a song.

And I’m here to write the words.