building it in
Many years ago, I discovered creativity. I figured out that making stuff felt good. I made stuff without thinking too much about it--it was just what I did. Then I started to grow up, and my to-do list got longer, and "make stuff" wasn't on there. No drawing, no painting, no hammering and nailing, no writing stories or poems...
It never occured to me to write it down, so when my life got busy and the to-do list took over, it disappeared. By accident. Yes, really.
...but as an adolescent I was still doing stuff: playing flute, writing stories for English class, singing in choirs, being a theatre techie. It wasn't quite as good, but there was enough. By university it was starting to fade. Flute was gone, English classes were pure analysis, theatre tech was a job instead of an avocation, and when I graduated, it all came to a grinding halt.
I didn't even realise what I'd done to myself for years. I couldn't figure out why I was more depressed, more tired, and less inspired than ever. I went to India for eight months, in relative cultural and linguistic isolation. I took a copy of Julia Cameron's The Artists Way. And I figured it out.
Hallelujah! I had the answer! I returned home, determined to make writing my life, get an MFA, teach and write and teach and write.
Then I got back. Needed a job. Needed an apartment. Had a job. Had an apartment. Wrote my to-do list. "Create body of work for MFA application" was somewhere below "dust refrigerator". Besides, it was now work in itself. It never got done, and meanwhile I ran into a tangle of experiences that led me down this other path to seminary. "Knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back." (Robert Frost)
Somehow, though, I keep picking up arts anyway. I use my needs as an excuse to take up knitting, sewing, woodworking, ("Oh, I'll just build that table instead of buying it...")
...and that has been my saving grace. Creation is built in. It doesn't show up as a separate, insignificant item which can be shuffled to the bottom. Thank you notes are a fifteen minute drawing exercise (thank you, Strathmore!) and a five minute gratitude meditation. Wool socks are a quick two-week project, preceded by a tactile play session choosing yarn. Do I sound like Martha Stewart? The trick is balance. Always balance. When it slips from joy to stress, simplify. When the stress is lack of joy, slow down. This works for food, transportation, life.
May I remember this more often.
It never occured to me to write it down, so when my life got busy and the to-do list took over, it disappeared. By accident. Yes, really.
...but as an adolescent I was still doing stuff: playing flute, writing stories for English class, singing in choirs, being a theatre techie. It wasn't quite as good, but there was enough. By university it was starting to fade. Flute was gone, English classes were pure analysis, theatre tech was a job instead of an avocation, and when I graduated, it all came to a grinding halt.
I didn't even realise what I'd done to myself for years. I couldn't figure out why I was more depressed, more tired, and less inspired than ever. I went to India for eight months, in relative cultural and linguistic isolation. I took a copy of Julia Cameron's The Artists Way. And I figured it out.
Hallelujah! I had the answer! I returned home, determined to make writing my life, get an MFA, teach and write and teach and write.
Then I got back. Needed a job. Needed an apartment. Had a job. Had an apartment. Wrote my to-do list. "Create body of work for MFA application" was somewhere below "dust refrigerator". Besides, it was now work in itself. It never got done, and meanwhile I ran into a tangle of experiences that led me down this other path to seminary. "Knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back." (Robert Frost)
Somehow, though, I keep picking up arts anyway. I use my needs as an excuse to take up knitting, sewing, woodworking, ("Oh, I'll just build that table instead of buying it...")
...and that has been my saving grace. Creation is built in. It doesn't show up as a separate, insignificant item which can be shuffled to the bottom. Thank you notes are a fifteen minute drawing exercise (thank you, Strathmore!) and a five minute gratitude meditation. Wool socks are a quick two-week project, preceded by a tactile play session choosing yarn. Do I sound like Martha Stewart? The trick is balance. Always balance. When it slips from joy to stress, simplify. When the stress is lack of joy, slow down. This works for food, transportation, life.
May I remember this more often.
posted by raj at
8:21 AM
