Acropolis Museum, 2025 “I don’t have a creative bone in my body,” a friend declared recently. Really? Not one? I thought, but didn’t say. Or believe. This was a person who had founded an educational nonprofit because she saw a need and could imagine a way to fill it. To me, that’s pretty creative. But she is also the sister of two musicians. And so she thinks of herself as the one who was born without creative bones. Are musicians, dancers, painters, poets, sculptors, singers, filmmakers, fashion designers, animators, actors, artists and writers of any and every medium the only true creatives? And must their commitment to creativity last from cradle to grave? What about the late bloomers?  It is February, and there is exactly one neon-pink bloom on the Christmas cactus plant in my office. All the other blooms on this decades-old plant got together and put on a tightly choreographed show two months ago: their best in years, right on cue, in mid-December. But not this February outlier. She waited until she had the stage all to herself. Every morning, for the first six weeks of 2026, as I drank coffee, read, wrote and watched the sun rise one minute earlier each day, I kept my eye on the maverick cactus blossom as she grew from a tiny speck at the end of a leaf to a full-throated, hot-pink prima donna. Why did she wait? Why wasn’t she part of the prime-time holiday show? Why do any of us wait? There are [...]