Tag: creative identity

The Ones Who Shaped Me

It’s Time to Play the Music: A Hero’s Love Letter to the Muppets

Mell D'Clute
SuperMell, in her black-and-purple superhero costume, stands center stage under a warm spotlight, framed by red theater curtains. Vague, shadowy puppet-like silhouettes linger in the background, suggesting creative influence and performance.

It’s Time to Play the Music

I’m really excited about The Muppet Show coming back, in a way that feels similar to when it first aired. I have grown up on The Muppets. Everything from Sesame Street to The Muppet Show helped shape who I am today. So did the movies—The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan—along with many later iterations.

I don’t know where I’d be without Rowlf the Dog’s constant dad jokes encouraging me to do the same. The sarcasm from Statler and Waldorf didn’t hurt either. And who didn’t love The Rainbow Connection? Such a beautiful song.

This is a post dedicated to the Muppets. Let’s get things started!

Lessons From Frogs, and Pigs, and Chickens, and Things

One of the first toys I had that I absolutely loved was a large stuffed animal of Mr. Snuffleupagus. Growing up on Sesame Street, and seeing all the interactions between people and Muppets, helped form who I am. Who doesn’t remember “a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter”?

So my mornings were spent watching Sesame Street. One day a week they had a prime time show called The Muppet Show. It was fun to see the reporter Kermit now hosting a show similar to a lot of variety shows in the 1970s. Miss Piggy quickly became one of my favourite characters. She stood alongside Wonder Woman and Princess Leia as one of my early influences. Sweet and gentle one minute and karate chopping her way through the next, Miss Piggy was bold, unpredictable, and utterly delightful.

The movies made a huge impact on me as well. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think fondly of The Rainbow Connection. When I rewatched The Muppets Take Manhattan as an adult, I got more of the innuendos. Janice quickly became my favourite Muppet. One of her lines—about not taking her clothes off for anyone, even if it was “artistic”—made me love her instantly.

Watching The Muppets always made me feel like I was part of their world. They mostly got along well with each other, had vastly different personalities, and felt so welcoming. It was often great to see what shenanigans they would get themselves into, and how Kermit would deal with it. They made it cool to be a weirdo.

Looking back, the Muppets taught me that there’s room for everyone on the stage—even the weird ones.

What Was Sundered and Undone Shall Be Whole

I have mentioned The Dark Crystal before in one of my blog posts, maybe even a couple of posts. It was a wonderful fantasy movie that just captivated me as a kid, and once again as an adult. I even enjoyed the brief series (and really wish they’d make some more of it!)

This movie introduced the idea of a hero’s journey or quest to me. It’s why I’ve named my blog “The Journey”, and it’s one of the reasons why I have come to see myself as the hero of my own story.

The idea of Jen and Kira as child-like—or even Hobbit-like—characters really appealed to me. This movie felt more grown-up to me when I was a kid and had a lovely story to it. Some scenes were a little frightening, like when they stripped Chamberlain down to barely any feathers left. But the message of the movie was not lost on me.

What stayed with me was the idea that there is both good and evil in everyone—and that they cannot exist without each other.

The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me

I still get excited whenever anything Muppet-related comes out. Yoda was my favourite character in Star Wars because he was clearly a Muppet and voiced by Frank Oz. I’ve watched and loved everything that has come out in the last few years that was Muppet-related. There was a time when I didn’t watch Muppets, I think in the era of the 1990s. That just means they’ll be on my list of things to watch very soon.

Now that the historic Muppet Show is back on Disney+, it has me so excited and happy. Let’s hope they do a “Pigs in Space” sketch, and so many others that were staples. Only one episode in and it feels like the show never went off the air. I watched it just before I went to work last night. Of course that just means I have had the theme song to The Muppet Show in my head ever since. Honestly? I don’t mind it. It’s a fun little song.

Then there’s the Mahna Mahna song… Which enters my mind at least every couple of weeks.

The point I’m trying to make is I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving the Muppets. I’m excited to see where the show goes from here, and any future ideas. Perhaps a new Muppet movie sometime soon.

Hi-Ho! Thanks For the Memories!

This post was intended to be a love letter to the Muppets. Special thanks to Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and everyone else who has contributed to the creation of The Muppet Show. I’ll never stop loving them. I hope they keep coming back. I’ll leave this post where it began—with the opening lines that still make me smile every time I hear them:

“It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights…”

Some songs never really leave you.

Emotional Cartography, Hero in Progress

Creative Sparks and Unfinished Stories

Mell D'Clute
SuperMell on a theatrical haunted stage as The Spark directs her with a megaphone, representing creative sparks and unfinished stories, while Diana the cat watches from the shadows.

Naming the Pull

When The Archivist of Regret shows herself, she often stirs up creative sparks and unfinished stories. She lives in the past, mostly. Whenever I get in a certain mood (slight depression, regret, remorse, etc.), I oftentimes find myself going down the rabbit hole of what could have been. This post is about unresolved issues that tend to linger, and I’ll be introducing a new character in my Who’s Who arsenal to better understand and regulate my emotional responses.

The Creature Creeps

This particular memory has to do with something that didn’t happen in high school. I was in a drama production that never got to see the curtain fall due to the tragic deaths of two of our classmates just before our dress rehearsal, one of which had a major prominent role in the play. But this post isn’t about grief of losing fellow students. This post is more about the grief of not getting closure on something.

The play was called “The Creature Creeps”. I have thought long and hard about this play that never got to see the light of day and have concluded that I don’t think the teacher got the joke of the play. I understand the humour much more as an adult than I did when I was a kid, despite not having read it since that high school year.

This often sends me down a spiral of imagining putting it on “the right way”. In it, I’m more of a director and have to explain the story to everyone so they get the joke. It’s a horror comedy/farce type of play. I see it much more clearly than I did back then.

Why Do I Do This?

It’s easy to dismiss this as something small or insignificant, especially since it happened so long ago. But I am a person who loves a good story, and I’m also one of those creative types of people. I believe the reason why I keep going through this loop is because I have an unresolved creative spark that hasn’t quite been acknowledged yet.

The Unfinished Creative Loop

I think this is a common trait amongst creative types. We do a project from far in the past, then think of ways we could do it better in the present. With age, maturity, and wisdom, comes better hindsight… and we all know how useful hindsight can be.

A cancelled play might not be what some people would think about, but I do constantly. Every so often the thoughts cross my mind. I honestly wish it wouldn’t keep coming up, but I never got closure from it as we never got to perform it. How do you resolve an issue like that?

Why Some Ideas Don’t Fade

For us creative types, we need to have that final bow, or feel like we did our best to complete a project. If we later see better ways of handling it than we did when we were younger, this creates the possibility of either a new project idea for inspiration, or a deep sense of regret for what could have been.

It’s so easy to see how the Archivist of Regret is working on opening the file, and even the Depression Beast peeking through from the shadows, whispering, “No one would get what you’re trying to say, so don’t even try to explain it. People didn’t like you in high school, and you weren’t that bright to have figured it out back then anyway.”

However, I also believe this is the perfect opportunity to introduce a new Wild Card character to my Who’s Who list of emotional characters.

New Who’s Who Entry: The Spark

Type: Wild Card
Core Emotion: Creative energy
Primary Role: Ignites ideas and creative reinterpretation
Shows Up When: Old creative work resurfaces with new understanding

The Spark brings flashes of insight, inspiration, and creative possibility. She helps me see familiar ideas in new ways, often revealing layers I couldn’t access before. At her best, she reignites curiosity and reminds me why creating matters. When she lingers too long without an outlet, she can trap me in a loop—revisiting ideas endlessly instead of letting them move forward or rest.

How This Character Fits In: Team-ups and Tensions

Common Team-Ups

The Spark + The Archivist of Regret
The Spark often activates old creative files the Archivist has carefully preserved. Together, they revisit unfinished work with fresh eyes, searching for meaning that wasn’t visible at the time. This pairing can bring insight—or keep the past perpetually open.

The Spark + The Navigator
When balanced, The Navigator helps direct The Spark’s energy toward what matters now, rather than what once was. This team-up turns inspiration into intentional direction instead of endless reconsideration.

Productive Tensions

The Spark vs. The Depression Beast
The Spark wants movement and expression, while the Depression Beast weighs everything down. When the Beast dominates, her energy fizzles into frustration. When she’s acknowledged but not indulged, her light can soften his heaviness.

The Spark vs. The Procrastinator
The Spark ignites ideas, but The Procrastinator delays acting on them. This tension often leaves inspiration suspended—alive, but unrealized—creating guilt without resolution.

Wild Card Interference

The Spark + The Trickster
Together, they can turn creative reflection into endless mental play. Ideas bounce, refract, and entertain without ever landing. Sometimes this is joyful. Sometimes it quietly stalls progress.

Why She Belongs as a Wild Card

The Spark isn’t a problem to solve. She’s a signal.

She appears when something creative wants acknowledgment—whether that means expression, reinterpretation, or simply permission to exist without completion. Learning when to follow her and when to gently thank her without acting is part of the map.

Why The Spark Showed Up Now

Perhaps with age comes wisdom. Or maybe I’m more aware of things now that I’ve gotten treatment for ADHD.

All I know is this memory continues to pop up from time to time (though admittedly not as often as it did a few years ago). She must want me to somehow find a resolution to this project that never got to be.

As I’ve mentioned many times in my blog posts, I love a good story. If it’s well-written, the characters are well thought out, and—if it winds up being a production—if the acting is supreme, it ignites something in me. I think this Spark is also the reason why I often want to learn animation—so I can tell my own stories visually. The Depression Beast has pointed out to me that I’m too old now and can’t really draw or illustrate very well, so how could that work out?

And sometimes I find myself wondering why this is resurfacing now.

Resolution

I think what I’m actually looking for may not be resolution, but permission. Or some closure. Perhaps I could write it out of my system privately so I direct it the way I wanted it to go. Or perhaps I should just let it go as a flick from the past. That’s much easier said than done.

If anyone has any ideas how to put this particular issue to rest, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Diana’s Wisdom

I’m sure if Diana could talk, she’d tell me to relax and stop driving myself crazy over this. She doesn’t live anywhere in the past as far as I know. She only cares about having food in her bowl, water to drink, a clean litter pan, some toys to bat around, and a warm lap for cuddling.

Diana doesn’t need closure, nor does she care about what might have been. She only knows what is in front of her right now.

Sometimes, presence matters more than answers.

Final Thought

Creative sparks and unfinished stories tend to linger for us creative types. The Spark lives to inspire us to do something creative. I may never find a way to get closure over this issue, or perhaps writing about it now is the first step to acknowledging that this Spark lives within me, and sometimes she’s just begging to be paid attention to. I don’t owe every creative spark a finished product. Some only ask to be acknowledged. Sometimes the work of a Spark is simply to be seen.

Do you ever find yourself trapped in a creative loophole over something that wasn’t completed? How did you handle it?