Creativity shows up where you least expect it. Like right now we’re doing site prep for the new house. By “we,” I mean definitely not me.

We’ve got some burly guys with even burlier machines moving enough dirt to alter the Earth’s rotation while I contribute by standing around drinking coffee and saying highly technical things like, “Holy crap!”

I’m channeling my inner eight-year-male child, one who is completely obsessed with the excavator. The wise ass kid who shouldn’t say words like crap in front of his mother. But in this case he gets a pass.

I wasn’t expecting heavy equipment to spark thoughts about creativity, but here we are.

This thing is enormous. It has no business being as graceful as it is. One minute it’s reaching way down into the hole with its giant claw. The next it’s climbing a mountain of loose dirt that I couldn’t scramble up on hands and knees. It pivots. It stretches. It somehow balances on terrain that seems impossible.

It’s like watching ballet. If the ballerina weighed 50,000 pounds.

I could watch it for hours.

In fact…I pretty much have.

In the evening, after the machines had gone quiet, Mr. Spouse and I wander through what currently looks like…well…a whole lot of dirt.

The corners and angles of the house had been marked with bright white paint.

“Here’s the front door,” he says. “If you’re standing on the first floor.”

We’re actually standing in what will be the walk out basement. I have to use my imagination to levitate to the first floor where I’m now standing in the kitchen. The living room. The hall to the master suite.

Where I see dirt cryptically marked with spray paint, Mr. Spouse sees a house.

It reminded me of last week’s walk around the pond. Same landscape. Two different ways of seeing it. A scientist notices one set of things. A painter notices another. Neither is wrong—they’re simply paying attention to different details.

I guess that applies to construction sites too.

This got me curious so I did a little digging (not in dirt!). God Bless Google–I type in something like why do people see the same thing differently and Google spits back “Research suggests artists often favor object visualization, while scientists, engineers, and designers tend to be stronger spatial visualizers.“

So there you have it. Mr. Spouse thinks like an engineer. Or an architect. He’s been designing and building things since way before we got married. And this house–he’s been designing it for years. Not weeks. Years. Every version led to another version. Walls moved. Rooflines changed. Windows grew. Closets appeared and disappeared. He’s lived with this house in his head for so long that, standing in the middle of an empty building site, he can see the whole thing.

Not sort of. Actually see it.

Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking, Pretty sure that’s a pile of dirt.

It’s not that I don’t know the house.

I do.

I know the kitchen island will have butcher block on one end because that’s where I’m going to chop the veggies.

I know where the coffee pot will live. And the view from the kitchen windows. From all the windows. Because we have a killer view.

I know exactly where the dogs will park themselves in the sun.

I know how the rooms connect. I know how they’ll feel.

But I can’t quite see them.

Not yet.

Because I’m an artist and my brain doesn’t work that way.

When I start a painting, I almost never know where it’s going. I might have a color in mind. Or an interesting mark. Or a feeling I want to chase. That’s about it.

The painting reveals itself a little at a time.

If I waited until I could see the finished piece before I picked up a brush I’d never paint.

That’s not how Mr. Spouse’s brain works.

He sees the whole.I discover the pieces.

Neither of us is wrong.

We’re just standing in the same place, looking at different things.

I still can’t see the house.

Not really.

I see coffee on the butcher block.

I see paintings hanging in the hall.

I see Charlie barreling through the front door, convinced everyone came to visit him.

I see Maggie claiming the warm sunny spot before anyone else notices it.

Mr. Spouse sees walls.

I see the life that will happen inside them.

And we’re both looking at the same dirt.

This week’s prompt: Think about how you approach creativity

Think about something you’re creating right now.

Maybe it’s a painting. A garden. A business. A room you’re rearranging.

Do you begin with the whole picture? Or do you discover it one piece at a time?

Either way, you’re building something that doesn’t quite exist yet.

And that’s a pretty wonderful place to stand.