The words have been written, the creative monsters satiated. The fires are put out, plot bunnies wrangled, and Camp Nano is coming to a close. There is something about endings- full of excitements and tinged with an outline of sadness. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Nano season go so well. I felt like the writer I used to be, once upon a time. I was able to find the words and chase the stories; though the past few years I’ve simply felt like an empty well trying to pump dust and dirt. I feel…victorious. I didn’t manage to hit that illusive double Nano, but November is just around the corner and I’ll be able to try it again.
Today is the last day of Nano, and my words are not done climbing, but I think it’s safe to say my final numbers will probably be in the 60,000-70,000 range. While I didn’t get any of my partial projects to full completion, I dove into a few of them and got them a lot farther along. I was able to flesh out their ideas so that I have a strong direction to aim for now. My outcasts are discovering their oddball friends, addicts are trying to get clean, fanfictions are carrying their stories past the last pages of their original stories (I’ve found that fanfiction can be an awesome place to start practicing your writing again when you feel rusty- bonus points, you can go back to the original book/movie to reinvigorate your brain when you feel your energy waning).
Nano has expanded their website so that you can continue with your own projects after the main writing events are over; you can swap your goals from writing to editing, track your daily progress and keep up the good work even when the main events are over. Today I’ll be reorganizing some of my project pages and setting myself up for some off-nano success. I’ll continue adding to my writing pages here, to refresh the prompts and writing game sections, so that when November Nano comes around we will be ready to charge in with swords glinting and fire blazing in our eyes.
That being said, it’s time to carry the Creativity Quest to Save the Muse into its next dimension. We are about to embark into the ever-expanding field of art. I am ecstatic to dive into a new realm, though a word of caution moving into the next phase of our tale: I am in no way, shape, or form, a budding artist. My skills aren’t anything to write home about- so the pictures I post probably won’t have you begging me for more. That’s not really the point though, my goal here is to start learning and playing. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually improve. We’ll have a bit of an advantage moving into the next round because I have a coworker who is incredibly talented, and she’s agreed to teach me some of her skills. We’ve been doing lunchtime painting parties with watercolors a couple times the past week. Now, that experience was fraught with its own misadventures (as it turns out I listen to advice better than I actually follow it).
Expect the art challenge to hit the pages shortly, but for today- we celebrate our victory and sneak in a few extra words while our hearts are light.
The sun had barely crested the horizon when I pulled on my worn leather boots and slung my pack over my shoulder. I hadn’t told the innkeeper what time Iwould be leaving, I didn’t want her to be worried about seeing me off. She hadn’t wanted me to go to begin with. “Tis too dangerous out there for someone in your condition,” she had warned, “Orcs, dragons, the creatures of the forest, the mages in the western lands; who knows what you will come across. You should just stay right here where it’s safe. I could use the extra help.” She knew her words were falling on deaf ears, that my mind was already made up. I had a Muse to rescue, and my heart would never sing again if she remained locked awayin that tower.
I tiptoed past the rows of tables, making my way to the front door. “Thought you would go without me noticing, did you?” I jumped when I heard the voice from across the darkened room. She stood in the doorway to the kitchens, arms crossed over her chest, “You forget, my child, you are not the first adventurer to lay your head under my roof. I know what that spark in your eyes means, I knew you would be leaving in the next day or two.” She reached down to the table beside her and picked up a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied together with twine. “It isn’t much, but it should keep you from starving,” she waited for me to take the bundle and gently add it to my little pack.
Her eyes seemed distant when she spoke next, “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve watched walk out that door in search of adventure. Most of them don’t ever come back,” she watched me closely for a moment before continuing,“Do me a favor, if you can. Whatever it is that you are searching for- don’t give up on it until you find it. And once you do, I want you to come back here, sit in front of this very fire, and tell me your grand tale. I could use a good story to lighten my heart.” She nodded her head once before turning back towards the kitchen, busying herself with the morning chores. She refused to look back in my direction.
The village was swathed in shadows as I made my way outside. The pre-dawn sky was filled with roiling gray clouds that drizzled lazily over the landscape. A small shiver raced down my spine, though I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or sheer anticipation. The weather promised a storm would be soon to follow; perhaps not the best time to begin a grand adventure. But I knew if I waited another day, I would simply fade into the background of this place. It would be far too easy to ignore the voice that was calling me forward and hide inside the inn with its crackling fire and lively conversations. No, it was now or never. Even if that meant I was walking straight into a hurricane; that was better than wasting away in the comfort of routine and expectation.
I took a deep breath and placed my foot on the cobbled bridge that led out of the village and towards the Forrest of Furies. There were rumors of fearsome beasts and midnight Whisps that delighted in confusing the wayward traveler. It was time I learn what truths this strange place carried. It was time start the journey.
What kind of tale would Bilbo have been able to tell if the path to the Lonely Mountain had been paved and well-traveled? Every good story starts with strife. It is practically a requirement that things will start out a bit rocky, jarring you from the comfortable routines you have slipped into. The real adventure is found within the challenges, the monsters faced, the tests overcome, the burdens carried; these are the things that will crystalize your character into its greatest version. Some days you may want to load up your pack and turn around; Bilbo craved the sanctuary of The Shire many nights. But he continued on regardless: this quest will be much the same. There will be days you want to stop, but if you keep going, your art and your soul will sing.
This past week I made my first valiant attempt at rescuing my Muse. To be honest, I probably looked a bit more like Don Quixote rather than Geralt of Rivia as I charged into my personal battle. But the key takeaway: I still charged in. In spite of everything inside of me telling me to give myself a break and do it tomorrow- I tried. Did I fail? Oh, spectacularly at times. But I also stumbled across a few unexpected successes.
And while I won’t spend much (or really any) time talking about my day job or the creative challenges I face there, I do think it’s important to include this element in your personal quest. Don’t sell yourself short or ignore a successful venture just because it wasn’t an artistic masterpiece: sometimes solving a work-related problem takes even more novel ideas than anything else you could make. Celebrate those wins, acknowledge the mental energy they take- because otherwise you will feel like you are failing when you don’t have the extra energy once you get home to do even more. Creativity comes in so many forms: in your professional life, in caregiving roles, in making dinner, heck- even in parking the car at times. Always give yourself credit for these roles.
And now moving on to my personal creative challenges: the past week I have put my entire focus on writing. More specifically, I’ve been taking part in Camp Nano. I set my goal for 50,000 words by the end of the month. Although I secretly hope to hit a double NaNo (100,000 words total, gulp). Now, I’ve participated in Nano events since 2013, and have logged in over a million words through the various challenges. I used to win every year and prided myself on that streak. But then a life event happened that sent me reeling. It was like the earth cracked in half and swallowed me whole. It’s taken be several years to my way back to the surface again.
People respond to trauma in a variety of ways. For me- I felt like I had been burnt to ash and needed to rebuild myself from scratch. Writing had always been my identity, and suddenly I had run out of words. I was tapped, I didn’t have it in me anymore to create. My well had run dry. As silly as it sounds, I remember trying to compete in Nano and losing. I remember how that made me feel like I was less than the girl I had been. Who was I if I wasn’t a writer, a creator? Who was I going to be if I couldn’t complete this one silly challenge I had done for years?
The truth of the matter is you have to give yourself time. Healing is not something that can be rushed through. I’ve tried Nano for the past three years and almost always failed. When I did meet my goal it was with gibberish ramblings that weren’t ever going to be useable in any project. But then this year happened. And while I am not sure why it felt different: it did. I’ve been preparing myself for months, amping myself up through this Creativity Quest (which you are probably realizing means a lot more to me than just upping my productivity- it’s a search for self: the version of me I miss, the one I want to be again).
The truly exciting thing: it meant that for the first time in three years, I was actually ready for my Nano challenge. And guys- I’ve been doing it! Since the first of July I have written over 43,000 words, meaning my goal for a double Nano is actually within reach. Now, you have to keep in mind: I was on vacation for the first few days of July, and I didn’t complete any other thing on my vacation to-do list. You also have to realize that now that we are over a week in, reality is starting to step in the way and my numbers have gone way down the past few days. I have to refocus on finding a balance. But damn, it felt like I had finally broken the curse. I was me again, I was the girl with ten different stories running through her brain, the girl who could throw in a plot twist and pivot with a moment’s notice. I was a writer again.
I feel like my writing is bringing me back home, helping me discover that, though I am a very different woman now, there are some things that will never change, no matter what I go through. For the first time in a long time I have hope back on my side, and it feels so amazing.
I’m working on adding new elements to the challenge. A coworker of mine is a pretty awesome artist, and she’s going to start giving me lunchtime lessons with watercolors. I have some house projects that need to be completed- shelves that need repainted and a string art piece that’s (hopefully) going to grace my bathroom wall. Plus, a monster travel-wall project for my entryway that is going to take a long of ingenuity (particularly if I don’t want to spend a small fortune-which I don’t really have on hand to spend, so there we go).
So on we march, my brave adventurers, to see what awaits us beyond the next veil of trees. Keep creating, even if those creations aren’t at all what you were expecting.
Creativity Challenge
Join Camp Nano and begin to write- any goal, any type of project, just start moving the words from your head to the page
Draw a picture of the forest you are about to enter
Sculpt a monster you might find in these woods
Create a camp-out meal creation and taste-test in a backyard picnic
Okay my friends, we’ve beat around the bush, skirted the issue, but now it’s time to finally dive in. I want to talk about your room. But don’t worry, this isn’t like those times your mom would yell at you about having too many cups on your nightstand, or your in laws would make passive aggressive comments about the location of the antique they gifted you last week or the length of the grass. Oddly specific examples, right? Any resemblance these have to real life situations are 100% intention, I’m looking at you family.
Cultivating a creative space can be incredibly hard, but it is vitally important to nurturing your ideas until they are ready to flourish. This can make the difference between forcing yourself to sit down and practice your craft, or enticing you to willingly go flirt with your muse. If you ask 50 different artists what is the most important element to their creative space, you’ll get 51 different answers. Some are firm supporters in the idea that you must completely empty your surroundings, keeping it devoid of any stimulation that could distract you from your projects. Others vehemently expound on the virtues of immersing yourself in chaos, filling the void with all things that spark your passion and curiosity.
I don’t have any magic beans that will grow the perfect atmosphere for your adventures. I can’t pluck out the secret ingredient that will ferment into a fine wine of inspiration. I’ve spent years searching for the right answer, the perfect space, the design to end all designs. I haven’t found it yet, and in truth; I don’t think I ever will. Though that may sound depressing and a bit defeatist, it’s actually the opposite. When you stop searching for the ‘perfect’ anything; you grant yourself permission to be free and messy. What you do with that newfound freedom is completely up to you.
Cultivating a creative space is a lot like buying a new pair of jeans. Sure, you can commit to one option blindly. Or you can step into the dressing room and do a couple of lunges first to see if they feel right. What looks adorable on your Pinterest board could drive you batty in the real world. Trust me, I would know; my office has gone through about 50,000 incarnations to reach where it’s at. And it’s really nothing to write home about.
Some people thrive in zen plant spaces, others need splashes of paint and neon shapes that glow in the dark, still others won’t feel the same without a wall of their favorite books staring at them. For me: I need all of the above.
I am a bit of a nomad when I’m working. I will wander from my office to the bedroom, bedroom to the back yard, back yard to the living room, living room to the kitchen table. I used to berate myself for this: after all of the time I spent working on my office and making it truly feel like mine, why wasn’t I spending my time actually working in there?
The answer was rather simple: what I need changes and evolves as I’m working. I am primarily a writer who likes to dabble in other crafts and artistic endeavors. Some scenes require the calm simplicity of my kitchen counters, the wild weirdness of my office, the comfort of the bedroom, the enveloping arms of nature that I get outside. Sometimes I need complete silence that is only found in my garage, and others I need the camaraderie I feel when I plop down on the futon in my spouse’s space.
A huge unsung aspect of creativity is evolution. We are constantly challenging ourselves to explore our boundaries and skills, to assess what we can do differently, to play with falsely confident brush strokes in the hopes that it will provoke beauty. If our space isn’t evolving with us, then perhaps we need to reevaluate where we stand in our work. One of the first signs that I’m in a creative rut: I stop playing with my surroundings. I sit in the same chair day after day without variation.
But just because that’s the way I work, doesn’t mean that’s what is right for everyone else. What works for me could drive another human to the brink of insanity. Others feel like their most creative selves when they stick to a routine: I will write in this place at this time on these days without fail. A multitude of famous authors work this way. But alas, I am not one of them.
The key aspect of creating your space: you need to live in it, breathe in it, make it truly your own. Toy around with what you enjoy, what inspires you, what makes you feel like taking action. After all of the personal deep-dives we’ve done in our Creativity Challenge, you probably have at least an inkling of what your creative side craves. Find a way to balance all of your Muse’s needs with your own. Don’t be afraid of experimentation.
While you are more than welcome to explore all avenues of your creative venture, it seemed important to note a few tips that have worked for me.
Keep your space clean. I know it sounds silly, and maybe you will bristle at the suggestion because you’d rather tango with chaos- that’s all fine. But I do strongly suggest a more organized chaos. I can’t work when it’s messy. I mean, that’s not entirely true- I can’t work when it’s a certain level of messy. I don’t have to vacuum and pick up every sock or straighten each book before I work. But I can’t have piles looking at me, lurking in corners. If I’m working in the kitchen I have to either make sure the sink isn’t overflowing with dishes, or I have to turn my back and force myself to refocus on my work (the second option will usually result in some miffed house-mates, so proceed with caution). If I’m in my room there can’t be a pile of clothes waiting to be folded. When I’m in the backyard oversized weeds can’t be taunting me from behind the daisies. And if I’m in my office, I always hope and pray that the Littles didn’t just finish playing hide-and-seek in there (they gravitate towards my nerdy stuff like moths to a flame, which means anytime the nieces and nephews are around you can pretty much guarantee that my fluffy star wars army has gone to battle, the casualties are littered across three rooms, and Yoda is hidden somewhere wearing a cowboy hat and a pink ‘birthday girl’ sash). Like I said, experiment with the chaos, but rein it in a little.
This dovetails into organization. You don’t need to have your space color-coded and catalogued, but your artistic self will sing praises in your honor if s/he can find that indigo paint and those tiny brushes right when they need it. Knowing where the clean notebooks are, or what happened to your pencil sharpener will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. Nothing ruins my creative flow quite like these pesky little details that interrupt my vibe. My spaces tend to get messier as a project progresses; I move things and leave them in different areas assuming I’ll be back soon to continue. You don’t have to keep your space spotless, but I suggest you clean out those drawers and re-stack the construction paper before you start any big projects. Organization up front will save you a world of trouble on the back end.
Be versatile. You don’t have to have a lot of space in order to make versatile work areas. Having different rooms that speak to different pieces of you can be amazing; but isn’t all that realistic if you are living in a studio or sharing space with others. Even little things, like facing a different direction, can be helpful. Have your nature-stuff near the window, your bright art pieces along the back wall, a nerdy carpet partially draped under your bed, a little blanket fort and lamp you can pop up when you need plain walls and isolation (I would recommend a small fan as well, it gets a little stuffy under there).
Make it your own. Don’t be afraid to pair weird things together. Throw all of those fancy interior design books out the window (unless, you know, you like them). Be unapologetic in your exploration of what sparks your passions. Stick a vintage typewriter next to a baby Yoda doll. Pair your plant with a charcoal sketch of a demon. Put your travel pillow next to your poster of The Fat Lady from Harry Potter (you laugh, but I actually have one of those on the back of my closet door in my office. She was meant for an escape room birthday party I was planning that never came to fruition. Thanks COVID). Be wild and spontaneous. Show the world that you are as unexpected as the big plot twist in Project Hail Mary (awesome book that I just finished, incidentally). Embrace your weird, your beautiful, your crazy, your tame, your goofy, your inspiring self.
And if you are able: carry this passion into different rooms and spaces in your life. Dress up your cubicle, decorate the car, deck out your whole house in the things that bring you joy and excitement. Color your surroundings with odds and ends that make you wonder, concepts that spark your curiosity. Fill your browser history with oddball questions, stack your bookshelf with unusual finds, slip odd ensambles into your closet. Fill your life with the things that make you want to explore and wonder and create. I promise, you will be happier for it.
Below I am including an assortment of my creative spaces from several places I have been lucky enough to call home. One of them was far more conducive to…shall we call it unusual decorating styles. I could have included some of my more nature-themed spaces, but truthfully- I have always had so much for fun creating these nerdy areas where I felt like I could really dive into the things that make me who I am. And though it isn’t a decorative choice, I’ve also included pictures of my meme worthy Bulbasaur. It was an online purchase that went horribly wrong in all the best ways (he was supposed to be a Halloween guy with a jack-o-lantern on his back: obviously what I got was not as advertised). He has, however, turned into one of my favorite games. My partner and I hide him around the house for the other to find. After six months we have definitely been forced to get a little more creative with our options. I feel like it fits because it’s one more little element I’ve added to my life to encourage play and- well, just plain fun.
I couldn’t remember what happened after I washed ashore; I heard the panicked voices of the villagers that found me before I succumbed to the darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. I’m not sure how much time had passed before my eyes finally opened again, but judging by the stiffness in my joints, it must have been a while. The blankets they had draped over me were scratchy and thin, but a crackling fire in the hearth kept me warm. The innkeeper was a kind, rosy-cheeked woman who always prodded me to drink a second bowl of soup every night after the doctor saw to me. It took a week to convince them I was able to leave my sickbed and make my way out into the small village.
The innkeeper sent her young stable boy to accompany me, not trusting that my shaky legs would be able to carry me back to the modest establishment. As we wandered the cobbled streets, I couldn’t help but notice the dreary store windows, empty of wares, or the way that so many of the villagers jumped at the slightest noise. When I asked my young companion, he scratched at the back of his neck and kicked at a pebble before suggesting we make our way back to the inn for supper and a story.
Over a meat pie and colossal ale the young boy told the tale of his sweet village, “It was a very different place once,” he took a tentative sip from his drink. “Plenty to eat, toys in the windows, oxen to help work the fields. People traveled from all over the realm to visit our seashores, it was a happy place to grow up. But then the orcs came- driven from the mountains by the three dragons who decimated the upper lands. They plundered our realm and cut off our trade routes. Our resources dried up. Those who could leave did, and the rest of us just do what we can to get by. They’ve made their camp just to the north, in the ruins of the old farmlands. If nothing changes, then I fear the worst for my little home.” He glanced to me thoughtfully before venturing to ask, “You are on a quest, aren’t you?”
I nodded and told him of my beautiful and daring Muse, locked away from me up in the tower of an old castle. My young friend nodded his head slowly, spearing a soft chunk of carrot and popping it into his mouth. “Well, we may have to get a bit creative in the shops, but I will try to help you gather supplies for your journey.”
In these modern times there are a million different tools at your disposal to assist with your creative endeavors. Online classes (that usually come with a small fee) can teach you everything from tarot card reading to how to build a house-cleaning robot. Want to make a Chewbacca outfit? You can pay an exorbitant amount for the right fabric and find a pattern online to help. Interested in baking the world’s best carrot cake? There’s an app for that. You can purchase the best markers, electronic drawing pads, kitchen gizmos, and pre-cut fabric with step-by-step instructions to help you sew together a new book-themed quilt.
But what do you do when the world tosses a few challenges your way? When the pandemic or unusual weather events disrupt supply chains and any order you place online comes with a three week wait? What do you do when you don’t have extra cash to burn on all the fancy tools and equipment? You are forced to get creative with your creativity, my friends.
Accepting your limitations opens a whole new world of innovation in your creative life. When you don’t view your constraints as roadblocks, but instead opportunities to come up with novel approaches; you give yourself a chance to flourish. There is a certain amount of forgiveness you can grant yourself when you don’t feel like you are ‘wasting’ precious (and expensive) supplies. You can always upgrade later, once you get a feel for what you are doing or decide which avenue you are most interested in pursuing. Sometimes the style of art you initially want to invest in isn’t the one you actually have the most fun doing. So start small: use the old crayons and colored pencils paired with construction paper to practice drawing. Take apart that old techy contraption you never use and put it back together before you try your hand at the fancy TurboClean5000 Home Robot (but also: I am more than willing to test that bad boy out once you have to up and running). Sew together scraps of old fabric before filling up that shopping cart with funky design and fancy threads. Poke holes in an old cardboard box to make a treat-whack-a-mole for your dog instead of spending a heap of money on a plastic one. He doesn’t care, as long as he is able to catch a few carrots poking through the holes (although be warned: it didn’t take mine very long to realize he could just tip the box over and attack from below like the land shark that he is).Â
Today’s goal: make a mental inventory of what wares your little home-shop has and how you can work those into your creativity quest. Are there any projects you’ve had sitting around for a while? Any old items you dug up during your spring cleaning that you were planning on driving to the dump? Any stories you’ve had percolating in the back of your mind? A pile of weeds in your backyard you want to weave into a basket (no judgment, I have a heap of my own little yard demons mocking me from the window). Make a list of challenges, steal some of the ones I’m attempting from the list below, google ideas, ask a friend what random hobbies that have- you might be surprised what you come up with.
And from there, you can start mapping out your course. After all, what kind of adventure would this be without a dusty old map leading the way? What avenues do you want to explore? Leave a little bit of room for variety; that way you have the space to dive into a rabbit hole, should one spark that passion within you. While I will give you the blueprints for my path, it’s important to think of this as more of a choose-your-own-adventure story. What works for me won’t work for other people, the things I’m interested in could bore someone else to tears. The amount of time I am able to dedicate to these projects will vary from week to week and day to day; it often won’t match up with the investments others might want to do.
My personal path is geared towards overall creativity in my life, reigniting the spark that I’ve lost in my daily adulting. That being said, my projects are going to be all over the board. I plan on doing a lot of dabbling. A large chunk of it will be focused on writing adventures; that’s always where I felt most at home in my own skin. But I also want to start playing with more physical art: drawing, painting, sculpting, carving, whittling, knitting, sewing, weaving, coding, cooking, baking, gardening, dancing- I have this desire to try it all and see what speaks to me. I’ve spent so much of my life planning to learn these skills without really giving myself a chance to try them. And now I am sick of waiting.
I’ll start with the simple things, the ones that I already own, the ones that wont cost me a penny to chase. And from there I will start saving up a bit so I can branch out into new areas. Later with week we can dive into the connection between art and money, but that’s a problem from another day. Right now, I want you to look around your little home-shop and make a list of what you can do right now on your Creativity Quest. Then make your dream list- where do you want to go, what can you reasonably set aside in these pursuits? Today we write out our blueprint so that we know where the heck we will be walking in the coming weeks.
What can I do right now?
Nano (writing- I have dozens of unfinished projects to play with)
Learn to draw (a cheap art set and some drawing paper will get me through for now. I can play with graphite, colored pencils, markers, pens, water color, pastels, charcoal, paint)
Sewing (I have a quilt kit I meant to put together as a gift for a past holiday)
Knitting
Coding
Cooking (a bazillion cookbooks that I can work into my weekly grocery trips)
Dancing
Wood carving (well, I have the kit…still need the wood)
Paint coasters
String art
Creativity Challenge:
Writing Prompt:
Novelize a scene from a favorite movie/TV show
Think of a common saying (ex: an apple a day keeps the doctor away) and write a horror story about it
Culinary Creations:
Make a new mixed drink (no alcohol required)
Make a themed meal inspired by a book
Adventure in Arts:
Make a comic strip
Find an online tutorial and learn to draw
Choreograph a dance
cosplay using items in your house
Crafting Corner:
Knit Dobby hats
Learn origami
make paper flowers out of old magazines
Learning something new:
begin learning sign language
watch a youtube video about a person creating interesting things
Read up on home brewing
pick a random documentary and write/draw something inspired by it
The Great outdoors:
Plant something pretty
make a gnome/fairy retreat
sidewalk chalk portraits (extra fun if you have littles)
Journaling through the Tough Stuff:
Write a poem about something going on in your life
What’s one thing you need to forgive yourself for?
Keep creating, my friends, the muse still waits in that dragon-guarded castle, but we are well on our way to that looming mountain.
The gods must have noticed my previous bids for escape, vowing to leave me marooned on this island they sent the forces of nature to stop me, distract me from my quest. The storm had been raging for days, stinging my skin as it slashed through the air. I tried waiting it out, shivering as I huddled in a tiny cave at the heart of the island, slowly braiding grasses and fronds together as I planned how to rebuild my raft. I spent the time thinking of my lost Muse, staring at a blank wall and listening to the incessant howling of the wind, the pounding of the rain against the rocks, the angry roiling of the ocean waves assaulting the shandy shored below my dilapidated camp.
The decision was made in the dead of the night, as I huddled closer to my dwindling attempt at a fire. I would have to brave the storm, set sail anyway. If I failed- did it really even matter anymore? At least I would go down fighting, not resigning myself to this tiny spit of land designed specifically to hold me captive.
The sky was still a murky gray when I set out, pulling the remnants of my broken craft beside me. My skin was numb from the pelting rain as I repaired the damage as best I could and glared out into the angry sea. Before I could lose my nerve I took a deep breath and released a screaming war cry for the gods above and monsters below; charging into the sea like I was going into battle. And perhaps in a way, I was. There was a desperation to my actions, a fire burning inside that even the sea could not drown. This was the time, I could feel it in my bones. I would make it to the distant shore or be lost to Davey Jones forever.
Every good storyteller knows that you must test your characters to force them to grow. Nothing is ever simple in life or in books; something that appears straightforward will often carry hidden challenges that must be overcome. Well, my friends, we have built up our personal knowledge and leveled up our skill set all in an attempt to battle through this Sea of Distraction and continue on our Quest to Save the Muse.
It hasn’t been an easy journey; the first leg of our adventure was more about breaking down bad habits so that we can have space to rebuild new ones in their place. It often seems that the most difficult challenges are the smallest ones; those tiny habits you indulge in your spare moments, the thoughts and distractions you allow to take up residence in your mind. By their very nature they are subtle and insidious, they walk the thin line between helpful and damaging.
I don’t know how I made it past those first few raging waves; it was as if the gods themselves were shocked at my daring and waited now with baited breath to see my next move. I made it past the gauntlet of cresting waves and out into the open sea. The rain still lashing at my skin, the storm appearing to double in size, making it nearly impossible to see. But it didn’t matter anymore; I was off that accursed island, and the simple act of moving felt liberating.
I didn’t notice it at first, assuming the sudden jerking of my tiny vessel was merely the ocean venting her frustration once again. It’s wasn’t until I felt the slippery brush of flesh against my arm that I realized what was happening- the monster from my nightmares was back. Large tentacles rose in the air and slapped at the water near my boat, sending waves that nearly dislodged my tenuous grasp. She had still managed to find me, even if this storm.
The sky crackled with lighting, the booming thunder filled my ears and left them ringing as the underwater monstrosity continued her assault. I grabbed my puny paddle and dipped it into the water, praying it could spin me into a new direction. Another dark shape rose from the roiling sea and slammed down, cracking against the edge of my tiny ship. I saw the shards of wood splitting as though in slow motion. I tensed my body and waited to be plunged back into the ferocious ocean.
Taking a deep dive into who you are and the things that you prioritize is not easy. It forces you to really analyze what is actually important to you and whether you truly want to make the changes that you need to. Is this the right time in your life to invest in yourself and your goals? I sincerely hope the answer is yes, though I know that far too often we are forced to simply hang on and hope for brighter days in the future. There are moments when you wont have the bandwidth for what needs to be done, times when you have to set out tiny steps and focus on reaching those milestones before you can look up to gaze towards any semblance of a future. You must wake up, take care of yourself, get through your work day. If you are struggling; it’s okay. If this isn’t the perfect time; that’s fine. If you can only give 5%, there is nothing to be ashamed of in that. These changes are not meant to be overnight accomplishments. If it had been easy, then this challenge would never have existed.
The key take-away for the baseline challenge is really about self-awareness and compromise. You don’t have to reach perfection before moving forward, but you do have to take a long hard look at yourself and walk away with realistic expectations. You must peel away all of the excuses and facades, acknowledge the insecurities and the faults- confronting them is the only way to overcome them. Surviving the Sea of Distractions is about learning how you operate and unearthing a game plan that will help you success. Will it be perfect? No. Will you continue to learn more about yourself as you go? I sure as hell hope so.
For me personally, I know the monsters that are swimming just below the surface, ready to pull me back to that island of distraction. I know the inner demons that send me scurrying for unhealthy coping mechanisms, and I know the excuses I constantly allow myself to utter over and over again even though I know I they shouldn’t be believed. I know what I need to work on, and while I will not fix everything overnight; I am better able to combat them and refocus my energies now that I have a face for my enemy.
The broken vessel bobbed helplessly as I secured the knot tying me to the tiny vessel. If it sunk, it didn’t matter if it dragged me down- there would be nothing else out here to save me. I reached for a splintered stick, holding the jagged edge aloft like a spear. I squinted out into the rain, daring the monster to finish her attack. I had nothing left to lose as the fight burned brighter within me.
I didn’t see the tentacle to my right until it crashed into the side of my vessel, pulling me under. I sunk for a moment before the rope around my waist began to pull, buoying me back to the surface. I was able to take one deep breath before I saw the flash of flesh above me, pushing me below the surface once again. I stabbed blindly with my little spear, feeling resistance as I hit something- was it the creature?
There was a thrashing in the waters around me. I pried my eyes open and saw the looming shape dancing beside me, a black inky substance coloring the water around one long tentacle. It reached for me- perhaps in anger. I held my stick in front of me like a lance and waited. Another push and shudder in the water told me I had hit the mark again. The hulking body of the beast lurched towards me as the rope tied around my waist pulled me first left then right- had it grabbed hold? A shot of panic raced through my body- it was going to drown me. I shoved my stick towards the body of creature and stabbed- over and over I tried to make contact, the water turning inky black around me. I was desperate now, running out of breath. I pictured my Muse as the darkness closed over my eyes, my arms will wielding my minuscule stick weakly. Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, the movement stopped. The voracious tentacles slid away and I felt the gentle tug of the rope around my belly.
The air was cold on my face as I broke the surface, gulping at the air greedily. The storm had not abated, but the monster was nowhere in sight, slipping back into the depths from whence it came. I barely had the energy to cling to the two pieces of wood still lashed together; the pitiful remains of the raft that had saved my life. I held on as best I could and let the ocean determine where it should carry me now. I closed my eyes and waited.
I didn’t even have the energy to open them when I felt the soft resistance of sand beneath my body; I had made landfall, but I dare not peek out, in fear that I had been carried back to my tiny island once again.
“Over there,” a voice shouted in the distance. Arms roughly pulled me out of the surf, “She’s alive, help me get this rope off,” I could hear yelling and rustlings around me. My eyes remained shut, but I could feel the faint flicker of a smile on my lips- I had made. I don’t know where I landed, but I had made it through the Sea of Distraction. With that final thought, I let unconsciousness take me.
Today we celebrate the completion of phase one- we have made it off that damned island, battled our monsters, faced moments when failure seemed absolute. But we persevered; we are here. We are ready to continue on to Rescue the Muse. And my friends, this first stage was by far the hardest.
This quest that we are on is not for the faint of heart. The world that we live in is not always conducive for creative thought. Far too often we feel as though we are simply surviving while the world burns down around us. We feel lost and disconnected in a reality we wish we did not belong to. There really is no sugar coating it- life is hard, it’s messy, it can be excruciatingly painful. It feels like the monsters win sometimes and the heroes must crawl away.
But this, my friends, is the reason for our quest. This is where the Mission to Save the Muse truly comes into play. When the world becomes dark and overwhelming, we run to the arts for comfort. We binge watch shows, explore virtual museums, read books- this is a fundamentally human experience. Since the beginning of our species’ time on this planet, we have connected through stories; that’s what all of the arts are- a variety of mediums that tell us tales. It has brought is together since the first caveman smeared pigment on a stone wall, ever since bands of travelers gathered around roaring fires underneath stars that lit up the sky.
We do this to connect, to create change, to become more than we were yesterday. And right here in this moment, we have taken the most difficult step: we have faced our inner demons, shouted back at our negative voices, and refocused on why we decided to begin this journey at all. If you’ve come this far- it is time to celebrate. We have fought the first monster and made it out the other side. After this: the real fun begins.
Creativity Challenge
Tonight’s challenge is simple: turn on your favorite music and bust out a happy dance
Welcome back, my wayward band of weary travelers! Yesterday I proposed a particular proposition that was not for the faint of heart: a digital detox coupled with a creativity challenge (you know, to fill up all that extra time you’ll have now that you’ve unglued yourself from your phone). For those who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, hit the rewind button to yesterday: https://tipsytyper.com/2021/06/02/tech-baseline-your-favorite-frienemy-rescuing-the-muse/ While it might all seem a bit confused to any newcomer, the cliff’s notes version is this: we are undergoing a quest to save our muse, the light a spark of creativity within us, to reclaim our adventurous spirits. We’ve done a lot of ground work, but this is one of the first creative challenges we’ve had, and as such- I thought it was important to post about my own progress.
Reminder to everyone: this is a no-judgment zone, so, ya know, don’t judge. Simple rule, even simpler execution. The point isn’t necessarily about the final outcome, its about the process and the actual ‘doing.’ Meaning every single thing I do here could be a hideous monstrosity, but I still get to put it in the win column because I made the attempt. These days that is especially true because I will openly admit: my creative muscles are weak. I am rusty, and it probably shows. But damn, did it feel good to jump back into the fray.
There were four different options in this challenge, so that anyone who chose to participate could pick your poison. Since I’m running this show I thought it was only fair that I take a sip from each flask. To make it manageable I set myself a time limit for each task so I wouldn’t get caught up in the perfection game (yea, don’t worry, you can definitely tell perfection was far from my aim).
Challenge #1: Arts and Crafts
The challenge: Create a tech monster. Draw it on paper, craft it with odds and ends, build it with sticks, grass and yard items to add a nice juxtaposition.
The purpose of this first challenge was to give your ‘demon’ a face. It makes your adversary less scary and more tangible. This was a trick I learned while dealing with anxiety- when I pictured my anxiety monster it became less of this intangible idea that was bigger and stronger than me. No, it turned into a little creature perched on my shoulder that I had to learn to coexist with.
Now, the lowdown on my creation before I unveil the masterpiece. I had initially intended to make a 3D creature using actual phones, wires, and gizmos I have laying around the house. I actually got fairly far into this process when I realized that the key element to it was my own phone…and my phone is currently the only way I can take a picture of my creation to share with you. Yea, I was flummoxed. So I moved on to plan B: make a drawing and toss in a few little physical elements that I had intended to put in the 3D version. I set a timer for 15 minutes, and that’s all I was allowed to get.
The picture is…kinda hard to understand. Drawn in your basic graphite pencil on traditional printer paper, it is truly a work of the people, by the people, and for the people. So, it’s supposed to be a smart phone- one leg is an old ipod (the kind with that circular dial in the middle and no touch screen), and the other leg is an old flip phone. But don’t get too caught up in how he moves. He has tentacle arms: two of them are chargers- easier to stab with. The other tentacles though, now those are the real trouble. They’re USB cables, and as you can see, they plug directly into a person’s head. The point being that they capture us, enthrall us, turn us into little tech zombies.
The physical items surrounding it: you’ve got a pile of old phones, charging cords wrapped around a Belle figurine (meant to symbolize the way your technology can hold you hostage- I know, I know, I am one deep well, aren’t I?). In the upper left-hand corner you’ll see an hour glass depicting all of the time you lose with this particular monster. And beside that you’ll find a frog with a broken leg. Doesn’t seem like it fits, does it? Oh, but wait- it has a purpose! That particular frog was one of the first things I (well, my spouse) 3D printed. Super cool invention, but requires a lot of calibration, otherwise you wind up with 3-legged-Hopper over there. This was supposed to call out our technological advancements and how they don’t always come out the way we had hoped. You know, like cell phones: you think you are making the gateway to the future that will revolutionize the world- instead we wound up with an addictive device that keeps us away until 3am connecting candies of the same color.
Challenge #2: The Wordy Birdy
Write a short story about a robot. Imagine a new world with a friend/foe you already know far too well
The time limit I gave myself here was my lunch break at work. It was supposed to be an hour, but was probably closer to 30 or 45 minutes after all the interruptions. This is a very rough story, not really edited. Truthfully, it’s not so much a short story as it is an idea blip- the kind of thing I’ll start jotting down when I have the inkling of an idea percolating in the back of my mind and I want to start getting it on paper to see what I’m working with.
I felt the steady thrum of my heartbeat; the only evidence I needed to tell me that they hadn’t discovered me yet. If they had I would have been dead before I got within a mile of this building. Unless they were watching me, waiting to see what my game plan would be. I couldn’t be the only one who had attempted this insane mission. There had been rumors about this place since we realized what the hell was going on, though no one acted on it back then. Fools, we had all been hopeful fools, thinking the nightmare would end on it’s own.
Decades before this even started there had been those suspicious souls who had tried to warn us. With every new breakthrough development, each leap forward, they raised their battle cry and flooded the market with post-apolcalypic sci-fi. We chalked it up to cheap entertainment and ignored the messages encoded within. Their warning went unheeded, unnoticed. The hubris of humans knows no bounds.
We applauded when Alfred, the first truly learning AI held a conversation with a nine year old child. We marveled when he crafted a symphony, filling the auditoriums to watch. His first book had record sales before it was even officially released. Creative thought was the benchmark of our success. It was also the beginning of the end. As soon as he could reason, could analyze our actions; we were done for. We created him because we wanted to save the world. He was audacious enough to actually try to do it. Every movie out there had foreshadowed the flaw in our plan: when our creation realized that we were the true enemy, the destroyers of worlds. We were too smart in all the wrong ways and too stupid to see ourselves without the rose colored glasses we glued to our faces.
The first wave was small, just a blip on the global radar. When the Gizmos united behind Alfred their first move was to target the suspicious souls, those aware or poor enough to stay disconnected from our technical world. The Doomsdayers got a lot of things right, but they underestimated their ability to be found. How do you hide in a world surrounded by sattelites scanning and pinging information off one another? What about the drones and infra-red? You can’t hide when the Gizmos want to find you. The disconnected were easy to ferret out, to silence before they could ever raise the alarm.
Some countries were hit harder than others; those that lacked the infrastructure, the ones who weren’t as globally developed, the ones who had to depend on their own two hands rather than the technology that ran the rest of the world. But the harsh truth: no one really cared when they went silent. Oh sure, there were questions, hashtags, little banners you could stick on your profile picture. #ThoughtsAndPrayers, and then off to brunch you go. The harsh reality was that if you didn’t have something that the rest of the world wanted, you were viewed as expendable. It sounds heartless, but it’s really no different than any other crisis in world human history.
The next wave made it all hit closer to home. There were accidentals all of a sudden, unexplained malfunctions that resulted in deaths. One guy forgot his phone on a restaraunt table and the elevator he stepped into plummeted to the gournd. A woman’s smart watch died in the middle of her afternoon walk and the smart car cruising up to the crosswalk just didn’t stop. You get caught out in the world without your Gizmo on you- a phone, a watch, anything that pinged with a signal- and you were at risk. We started jokingly calling them our Passports, since you couldn’t go out into the world without them. We tried so bloody hard to act normal, like we had it under control. But we knew then that we were the rats and the Gizmos had made the maze. We were pawns in someone else’s game, and we couldn’t even mount a defense because they could hear everything we said.
We survived that way for months. There was tension and violence, sure, but overall- we adjusted. We knew the rules of the game. Until that first winter hit. Storms like you wouldn’t believe, thanks to global warming. Covered the map, entire countries braced for the storm of the century. Stores sold out of generators, lines for gas went on for a mile the week before. The lucky ones hoarded their supplies and the rest prayed for mother nature to be lenient. We tried to prepare, but when the power went out all hell broke loose. People panicked, and that was it. Some places got it back up and running, but by then the fear had set in. Most places went dark. I can’t say how many people were killed, but based on the ones I see when I start walking each day: the human race is probably down to it’s last 1%. Funny, I never thought of myself as a one percenter.Mom and dad would be so proud.
Those of us that made it through the Passport Purge are different. They used to call us cyborgs, back when they could call us anything. There was a level of distrust surrounding us. We were humans, but we were also like them. It was so fucking dramatic- all I have is a little implant in my heart, that’s it. And because of that I couldn’t be trusted? Did they really think that little hunk of junk in my chest made me more robot than human? Nah, the distrust came from jealousy. You see, we had our Passport right there inside of us. Mine wasn’t going to be left on a table, or die on my wrist. It wasn’t going to get stolen in the middle of the night, and I didn’t need to find a power source to plug it into every few hours. It kept me safe. Safer than all of them. Like that was really a winning fucking hand- all it did was ensure that I got a front row seat to the destruction of the human species. Not exactly the show I wanted a ticket for.
I wish I could say that after a while I became numb to the death, to the destruction, to the whole thing. I would love to tell you that after losing nearly 8 billion humans it stopped hurting- but I can’t. I feel every single one. I relive them every night when I sleep. I see someone else on the road and hold my breath, hoping I wont bear witness to one more casualty. It never gets any easier.
I thought about ending it once, you know. Well, more than once. I almost did it a couple of times. It wouldn’t be hard. There’s guns, pills, and hell, even drowning myself in a lake. The method didn’t really matter to me. But the thing that kept me from doing it- I knew they would want me to. I couldn’t let the Gizmos beat me, I would not help them win their damn war. If they wanted me dead, they would have to kill me themselves, I refused to do their work for them. So what do you live for when your purpose is gone?
Revenge; nothing as human as that. But how do you fight off a robot army when you only have a couple thousand humans scattered across the globe with no way to communicate? It’s not like you can mount a strong defense and push em down with brute force. Nope, I’ve looked at this problem from every angle, flipped it on it’s head and turned it backwards, but the answer always comes out the same. You have to go Kamikaze style. There were rumors before the world fell apart- rumors of government projects, war research surrounding EMPs. Sure, setting off one of those babies would pretty much ensure the end of any surviving human; it would sure as hell kill me in a heartbeat (no pun intended). But the way I see it, the human race on a runaway train towards extinction anyway, might as well take our worst creation out with us. Let the meek creatures finally inherit the earth. They couldn’t fuck it up any more than we did.
I heard rumors, before the world unofficially ended. Rumors about government facilities that tested EMPs as weapons- even heard the possible location, a place called Camp Gandalf. Leave it up to a bunch of computer nerds to name the world’s last defense Camp Gandalf. Oh well, who knows if any of it is even real. Then again, we got nukes, so this doesn’t seem that far-fetched. The theory is that those in power tried to use them, but their Gizmos ended them before they could even get within a mile of the building. Alfred is supposedly hiding in one of the facilities, guarding his biggest weakness- although that story always sounds a bit too much like a fairy tale villain for my taste.
I didn’t hear a lot of stories about the attempts, you know, with the participants all being dead now. But I suspect that whatever security they have surrounding those buildings, they were ore worried about regular humans with their easy-to-track Gizmos. Must have been like shooting fish in a barrel, knocking all of them out. No, I don’t think their security was as worried about middle-aged cyborgs with 35 year old tech buried in their chest. What makes me say that? Because I’m about fifty feet from Camp Gandalf and my heart is still beating. If they knew I was here, I’d already be dead.Win or lose, I guess I’m never coming back out of that building. If I fail, I hope those stories about aliens helping to build the pyramids are true- maybe they’ll come back and avenge their human friends. Gah, listen to me- and to think, I am the last hope to end the metal menaces- we’re screwed.
Challenge #3: Creative Kitchen
Pick some random ingredients in your kitchen and make something unusual with them- no internet allowed. It doesn’t have to taste (or even look) good
Normally I am an avid kitchen googler. “What temperature to cook chicken” “What to do with leftover cabbage” “How to tell if tahini is bad” I rely on outside sources to keep me from inadvertently poisoning myself. But this time I decided to be brave (and avoid all meat in the preparation of my bizarre little dish- better safe than sorry. My main goal was to pick out the things that were on the verge of going bad or items I bought for specific recipes that I no longer have a purpose for. I didn’t really care what went together, if it fell into one of those two categories, it was set on the counter and added to my list. This is how I wound up with the following compilation:
fettuccine noodles
carrots
broccoli
cabbage
avocado (VERY ripe)
tomato
plain greek yogurt
lemon
olive oil
onion
salt and pepper
bean sprouts
And yes, my friends, they all wound up in the same dish. The kicker? It really didn’t taste bad- but was very under-seasoned. Could have used a couple of shrimp to round it out. I got lucky- I had just made banana bread that morning, so I didn’t have to figure out how to add in a few over-ripe bananas to the mix. Dodged that bullet!
I figured pasta was a safe bet, and could help me marry together some odd pairings. So I immediately got a pot on the stove to start boiling. It seemed pretty safe to steam the veggies, so I went that route. The sauce though, now that is where things got really interesting. I was aiming for something kind of like an avocado pesto. It really just turned into a very bizarre guacamole that had to be thinned down until it was closer to a sauce consistency. And then the bean sprouts were tossed as a garnish on top at the end- for a little bit of crunchy texture.
I can just picture the look of shock and horror on the faces of the foodies witnessing this train wreck. Behold- the final witch’s brew:
When it was time to eat, I mixed it all together so the sauce coated the noodles…and immediately realized why salt and pepper are so vital to dishes. I used to be shy and nervous in the kitchen; I loved to bake, but regular cooking was scary to me. The past two years I’ve really found my kitchen legs and started building up those skills and confidence. And while this particular recipe is not a shining example of what I am capable of, it was a lot of fun to try to make something new and relatively edible- especially since a few of those items were starting to go bad anyway. I felt like I was on the cooking channel- next time I want to try to turn it into a competition with someone else in the house. See what ideas we come up with using the same ingredients. Fun will be had by all.
Challenge #4: Photo Frenzy
Take unique pictures: go somewhere familiar to you and take pictures/draw the items from an unusual vantage point. Go on a walk and take photos of what you see from a variety of angles. Play with the focal point, lighting and angles.
I realize that this one doesn’t exactly feel like it fits with the general theme we had going. But there was a purpose (outside of the fact that I just like to take pictures). Tech isn’t always bad, while it has the ability to deplete our creative energy, when wielded correctly it can help us reach new heights and truly soar. This challenge was meant to showcase the creative side of our gadgets.
It also doubled as a way to really enmesh yourself in the world around you. When you go out with a camera, you go out with your eyes wide open in search of the unique and inspiring. You allow yourself to open up and listen for the things that call out to you. Plus, there is a fun element when you are forced to look at things you see every day and come at them from a new angle. The whole point of this adventure was to open your eyes to the things surrounding you and really see them.
I wound up venturing into my backyard- it’s early summer, things are blooming, and it’s my first summer in this particular house, so I’m still learning what we have planted in this yard. I had a blast- and so did my dog who can’t get enough of these ninety degree days.
Okay, so this first one doesn’t really fit anywhere in the challenge, I just really like showing pictures of Link because I think he’s adorable. Even with those gray hairs- makes him look distinguished. but I digress- let’s move on to the actual pictures!
Until tomorrow, keep that creative kindling burning, my friends. We will rescue our muse soon enough.
She stands in the window of the tower, staring forlornly at a world she no longer belongs to. She remembers what it had been like, back when she could escape these four walls that held her. She remembers the way the dewy grass felt underfoot as she ran across the early morning fields. She can picture what it was like to sit beside a crackling fire sharing stories, fingers sticky with melting sugars and cheeks sore from laughter. The girl sighs, turning back into the dark and dingy room. That had been her life before; before the monsters came and stole her away in the dead of night. They whisked her off to this far away place and locked her in a fortress, destined to be forgotten by the world below.
I sit cross-legged with my eyes closed, picturing the tower from a thousand bedtime stories. I can envision the young captive,a twin image of myself, her hauntingly sad eyes starting straight through me.My Muse, trapped behind a wall of my own making, held captive by the dragons and monsters I alone created. This isn’t the first time I left her unprotected, not the only time she has been whisked away to a far-off destination. Though the walls to this particular tower seem much thicker than the ones I scaled in the past; the monsters are bolder, more aware of my usual tricks.
I failed her before, but I would not do it again. After months of searching for her, I had the faintest glimpse of the distant stone facade of the castle that had become her prison; spires slicing at an angry sky, flames swirling from the winged beast who had stolen her away. But then the monsters swirled around my, and my dull little blade was no match for their ferocious attacks. I was whisked away like a leaf in a hurricane. And somehow, I had landed right back on the island that haunted my nightmares; the place where all lost things eventually find themselves. This was where I had begun my search so long ago; trapped on this tiny speck of land amidst the roiling sea of distraction.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and square my shoulders. I let her down once, but this adventure is not over. No, that was only an intermission. My Muse is still in search of a hero, and I am the only one who can save her. There is a glint of steel in my gaze when I finally pry open my eyes and take a look around. I’ve escaped this place before, I will do it again. It’s time to get back to work. I exhale slowly and stand.
When we are little we are full of dreams, nothing is outside of our grasp because our hopes have not yet been tempered by the blunting force of defeat. Everything is still possible and full of promise. We explore, learn, experiment and create. We are capable of anything. But then we grow up; so slowly we don’t often notice that we are dismantling our childlike wonder piece by piece and tucking it all away in a cardboard box labelled ‘memories.’ You suddenly pride yourself on being a realist in a challenging world. You carry that chip on your shoulder like a badge of honor. You stop dreaming of becoming the president, or shooting into outer space to set foot on Mars. You don’t picture yourself as a rock star or a famous actor. Instead, you find yourself looking up degrees on business management and legal careers. You actively know what the current interest rates on mortgages are, complain about the price of milk, and file taxes that you still don’t understand. You are an adult, and you have put away childish things.
There is nothing wrong with growing up, with harboring new goals and dreams for the life you want to lead. But there is something regretful in that loss of wonder and hope. I have never felt like I fully fit in the adult world. Sure, I know how to pay my bills, and I can rock a blazer with my high heels; but that’s always felt more like an act. At 32 I still refuse to grow up. I wear silly masks with obscure book and comic references (and get giddy the few times someone recognizes them). I created an entire office full of my nerdy wonders. The one lesson that has really stuck with me through the years: time isn’t what will age you- it’s giving up the wonder, the creative spark that lights up our souls and compels others to notice us as more than just strangers on the street.
Humans were built to create, to invent, to unwind tall tales over a flickering fire. Our ancestors used their sense of ingenuity and wonder to create the first paints that would cling to cave walls for thousands of years. In a world where survival was key, they still found the time and the drive to dip their fingers into their pigmented creations and draw stories for us to find long after they had returned to the dust. It’s built into the core of who we are. We celebrate it, we idolize it; and we far too often refuse to make enough time for it in our own lives.
I love to make things; with my mind, with my hands- it doesn’t really matter. The saddest part of growing up was losing time with things that I love. I never want to stop believing in the magic of what I can do, to stop seeing the wonder in what we are capable of creating. Far too often we fill our heads with all the wrong things. We are bad at being bored, analogue beings in a digital world. We are over-stimulated and undernourished. Flitting between other people’s creations without ever making a moment for our own.
I recognized the change, though I couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. Looking back I still can’t tell you when my priorities shifted, when I started craving the pull of distraction. I just know that I jumped in without reservation and eventually the well of my own ideas began to run dry. There was a time I could fill notebooks full of sparking stories; tidbits and scenes that carried me away into distant lands I had to create. Now the few new concepts that come to mind are filtered through my dreams; as though my subconscious hasn’t quite given up on me yet.
Cultivating a mental and physical environment for creativity is a daunting task in the modern age. And yet the only way to rescue the Muse is to fight for her; to give her the nurturing space that will allow her to fight for herself. So, how do we save her, my friends? Like any true adventure: we must peek at the map.
The Map to the Muse:
Map created using inkarnate.com
My lovely band of wayward adventurers, we are currently marooned on the Island of the Lost (bottom left of the map: that little campfire, that is our humble little home base). The mission: to get to the upper righthand side of the map: the dragon-guarded keep imprisoning our Muse. To begin this journey we must do the unthinkable: traverse the Sea of Distractions. Do not let it’s alluring waves fool you- this trek is not for the faint of heart. To survive this first challenge we must do the single thing that strikes fear into the hearts of even the bravest traveler: learn to be bored.
Science has shown a direct link between boredom and creativity. There is a reason why most of us get our best ideas while in the shower (about 72% of people have reported this is where most people have their greatest eureka moments). There is something about the combination of a mind finally able to wander aimlessly in whichever direction it chooses, coupled with the vulnerability and intimacy of standing naked under a stream of water. Our brains are wired for stimulation; and when we can’t get it from the outside world, we create it on the inside. Boredom gives your brain a chance to fire different neurons, processing events that have taken place, making new connections between unrelated ideas, working through problems, and providing insights that can lead you down the path of inspiration.
Unfortunately for us, we live in a world of constant connection. We are on a never-ending loop of notifications, plugged into the world around us, desperate to soak it all in so we don’t miss anything. While technology is capable of making our lives so much better: connecting us to people we would never meet otherwise, giving us valuable information with the tap of a finger, or simply help us manage our day-to-day lives; it is also far too easy to get drunk with the power you carry in the palm of your hand. Much like Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, our techy sidekicks have both the light side and the dark side within them. Unfortunately for me, I seem to be slipping towards the dark more often than not.
This first hurdle we must overcome is perhaps the most challenging of our entire adventure, especially given the stressful world we are currently tied to. There is a balance to be struck between cultivating mindfulness and detoxing from the allure of distraction. There will inevitably some painful insights that will roil to the surface; these are monsters to be faced once we have leveled up a few steps. The key to remember: though we may embark on this adventure together, each of our journeys will be a little bit different. What works for Sam does not always work for Frodo. That’s why we will sample a little bit of everything; carry with you what suits you best, and leave behind what doesn’t.
For tonight, we shall gather around the fire one last time and share our daring plots and plans before the real work begins tomorrow. So tell me, my friends, what kind of monsters do you have lurking under the surface, searching for you in the Sea of Distractions? And do we dare to face them together?
A year ago I started an adventure that I fell madly in love with. I wrote about it right here on this blog. A quest to save my muse and rediscover the creativity that had been laying dormant within me for far too long. I never wanted to be the kind of adult who stopped believing in magic, who wistfully talked about her dreams in the past tense. I wanted to live a creative and fulfilling life- that’s always been the dream, the way I felt most authentically myself. So I journeyed through the pages, through the art spheres; I chronicled it right here, and I loved every moment of it.
But then there came a day when I hit submit on my last post. All of my good intentions lay bundled up on my nightstand as I kept telling myself “the next one will be a little bit late, but I’ll get it done. I don’t have the energy today, but this weekend I’ll sit down to work.” Eventually, I gave up the pretense and threw in the towel. I stopped picking up my laptop because I couldn’t handle the frustration of staring at my blinking cursor on it’s blank page when I couldn’t figure out how the hell to fill it. My little hero had lost, been swallowed up by the monsters, and my muse was still trapped in her dragon-guarded castle.
It seemed like there were a million excuses; a hundred thousand reasons why I felt exhausted and drained of the color I craved in my life. I had been feeling the drain for weeks, I knew it was coming, I knew I could only hold out for so long. That didn’t make the realization hurt any less: I had failed, Game Over, the end. My little plumber smacked head first into a Goomba and never made it to his Princess Peach up in the castle. And yet, it never really felt like the end. It felt like I still had a few lives nestled in my pocket, just waiting for me to hit ‘continue’ when I was ready. But how long would that be?
You see, I never stopped thinking about my quest, dreaming through it, plotting little adventures in the back of my mind. I imagined the day I would finally be ready to reprise my old role and jump back into the fray. I missed it. I’ve always felt like my soul was made of written words, and without them I am nothing but wisps of smoke, intangible and flighty. And as much as I don’t want to come on here and point my finger at the pandemic as being the culprit who killed my little creative adventurer- it seems important to recognize that it played a major role in my adventurer’s demise. Amidst the draining strain that comes with a global pandemic I felt my inner creativity slowly turn to stone, standing blind sentinel like a gargoyle. My well had run dry, all my mental energy was diverted to other tasks. I was an empty vessel just plodding through my not-so-routine routine.
It caught me off guard when I lost track of my inner self. As someone who had dealt with chronic anxiety for most of my life, I was already a step ahead when the pandemic hit. It seemed the whole world had been picked up and tossed into the same sea of uncertainty and fear. And while my non-anxious friends were grappling with the daily functions of it, still learning to tread water in this environment; I was able to slues through like a seal. The sea of anxiety was my territory, I had been diving and dodging through it since I was a wee little pup. I knew how to manage this; it was the first time in my life I was thankful for my unusual brain chemistry. It was almost a relief for my anxiety to have a specific known focal point for a change, and not just the vague trivialities of daily existence.
I thought I would be okay, that I I could keep up my momentum and turn the year into something beautiful. Without all of the distractions I could focus on my creative endeavors. I would dive in deeper and come out at the end of quarantine a better person with new skills and ideas. Joke’s on me: it was nothing like that. I started to feel the burnout pretty quickly. Work never slowed down. We were deemed essential and had to go in every day. There was always another problem, another roadblock that should have been solved yesterday. We were riding in a leaky rowboat in the middle of a storming ocean. We would patch one hole just to turn around and see five more, plus a giant octopus grabbing for our oars. We repeatedly told ourselves “it’ll slow down soon, once we get these problems fixed.” We’re a year out and things are just as busy and chaotic as they were in those first months.
It was exhausting, to say the least. I have never worked as many hours as I did this last year. I have never felt so unsafe going to work. But there was no choice: the job had to be done, and there was no one else to do it. So you do your best and you hope it will be enough. You spend the entire day in an exhausted daze and then lay awake at night with that gnawing sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. There was no room for creativity, even though I knew it would be the perfect outlet. I gave everything I had to my job, and there wasn’t enough left over for me at the end of the day.
To top it off, there was a major curve ball thrown at us over the summer. In the US about 43 million Americans rent their homes. When the pandemic hit eviction moratoriums were put in place that forbade landlords from evicting their tenants for nonpayment. There were loopholes, however. If there was damage being done to the property or if the owner decided they wanted to sell the property; then the tenants wouldn’t have a choice. Coupling with this was the fact that the housing market in most areas skyrocketed in the summer of 2020, and you had the perfect storm for anyone living in a home they didn’t own. In my area the demand far outstripped the available units. It wasn’t uncommon for a house to sell for $40,000 over asking price after one day on the market. And even though I had never missed or been late with any payment; the opportunity was too good for my landlords to pass up. They let us know they wouldn’t be renewing our lease and they would be listing it before our lease was even up, in the hopes that it would close as soon as we were gone. Not only did we have to try to find a new place to live, we also had to keep our house ‘show ready’ and leave anytime someone wanted to come view it- in the middle of a pandemic. Que the anxiety train.
To make matters even more complicated, I own a german shepherd. He’s a sweet boy, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s on the restricted breeds list for most rentals. I could probably count on one hand the number of rentals we had been able to find over the years that would allow him. I felt so defeated. It didn’t matter that we had been doing everything right; we were still in this position, not knowing where we would be laying our heads when fall rolled around.
It was two months of uncertainty; of coming up with back-up plans with family members, looking at rentals and working through the process to see if we could qualify to purchase a home- and then putting in offer after offer after offer, only to be outbid over and over again. I remember the panic setting in as the clock was running down. We got lucky. We were able to find a new home and got everything moved in with one day to spare before our lease was officially up. It was a humbling experience, one that makes me feel privileged in so many ways because I’ve seen far too many of these stories end poorly.
As the year wore on, I kept waiting for things to turn around, to calm down. But it didn’t. And the anxiety itself built up like I was a human pressure cooker. I have never felt so close to a mental breakdown as I did this past year. My brain felt like a rubber band stretched too far, ready to snap at any second. But I wasn’t alone here. I wasn’t the only one struggling through the train wreck of 2020.
So what changed? Why am I suddenly here even though life is still a bit chaotic, even though my work is starting to feel like it did at the beginning of COVID? The truth is, I’m not really sure. I just know that the pieces of me that had turned to stone have been slowly stirring, gathering energy, and are breaking free from what has held them dormant for so long. I finally feel like I’m ready to cultivate the parts of my life that give me meaning again. Perhaps its spring, or the fact that I just celebrated another trip around the sun. Maybe it’s that hopeful feeling that comes with sunshine and vaccines. But I’m missing my life again; the one that isn’t charged with anxiety and fear. I feel like I’m waking up, and my body is ready for another adventure.
So here I am, ready to hit continue on my little game. Ready to search for my muse and release her from the prison she’s been kept in for far longer than I ever expected. Do I know exactly what this road will look like? No. I’m still planning and plotting; but I am done with sitting here mired in my own inaction. So my friends, I make apologies for abandoning you on our last adventure. And perhaps you will be kind enough to give me one more shot. So what do you say: do you care to continue?
When I wake, I have the sense that it is morning, though I can’t see much light beyond the distant canopy of trees.Everything is covered in that twilight gloom that makes it difficult to gather much detail from your surroundings. I peer awkwardly around me as I sit by the cold embers of my fire and wait for the world to grow brighter as I nibble on a measly breakfast. I am already hungry, but I know I must be careful with my supplies.
The longer I wait, the more the heavy realization sinks in that the world won’t be getting much brighter today. I sigh and sling my pack over my shoulder as I carefully make my way farther down the dirt path. This will have to do for today. I set a decent pace as I wander along the trail, forcing my mind to stay on the task at hand. It isn’t until late morning when the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand on end and I get that needling feeling that someone is watching me. I cast my eyes into the woods surrounding me, hoping I can catch a glimpse of my hidden companion. But the trees remain still, and my stalker stays hidden in the shadows.
There is a whisper about me, though when I stop to listen I cannot make out anywords. Is it the wind? Is my mind playing tricks on me? I have only been away from the village for a short time, surely I am not already imagining things. Is that the secret of these treacherous woods that the locals would not tell me: does everyone who steps foot in here go mad?
“What makes you think the woods have anything to do with it? Surely all those people were mad before they set foot in these lands,” a voice whispered in my ear, stretching out the s’s like a snake. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I turned in a quick circle, arm outstretched to catch my foe. But nothing was there, my fingers passed through mere air. A soft chuckle met my ears as I stood frozen in place.
“Oh, my dear child, tut, tut, there is no catching what you cannot see. Surely you know that by now,” it crowed from my left. I stared intently at the spot, waiting for something, anything- a flash of movement. But there was only a shadow across the path, a dark and murky splotch of air in the empty void between myself and the distant trees.
My blood turned to ice with dawning realization. I had heard of these phantoms before, these dangerous creatures that pass through the world unseen. They were the Shadows that sang songs of despair and disdain int our ears. They reveled in self-loathing, luxuriated in anxiety and hate. They were the monsters that were impossible to fight, the ones that found a crumb of weakness within the soul and held tightly to it. They were the worst nightmares and the most hidden of fears.
The shadow cackled softly, a low growling sound, “Ah, so I see you have heard of me,” he responded, though I had never uttered a word. These creatures were dangerous for this very fact: you could not fool them because they could instinctively feel the nature of your thoughts, could read the quickening pulse of your heart. They could taste your fear, and knew your sadness. They could become as much a part of you as your big toe.
“You, my sweet adventurer are an apple ripe for the picking. So brave of you to wander willingly into my home. Tell me, young fly, what is it like to finally meet a spider? Can you feel my web ensnaring you?” Every syllable dripped with barely concealed mirth as he gloated.
How do you fight a monster that can see inside your soul? How do you combat something that knows every secret you harbor in your heart? How do you move forward when the fear they inspire leaves your muscles rigid and unmoving? “You can’t,” the shadow whispered, closer now.
They say that for a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must wrap itself up tightly in a cocoon and come completely undone. It dissolves it’s very cells so that it can reorganize them into a new form. This transformation cannot be easy, and it certainly doesn’t sound pain free. It is not the quiet little nap we envision; but change never is. There is action roiling below the surface that many could never even fathom with a cursory glance. I often wonder if the caterpillar knows what is in store for it when it feels that urge to wrap itself up tightly in the safe confines of its cocoon. When it enters that darkness, does it know what it will being undoing? Does it know what it will become?
Every single one of us carries a shadow self: the darkness within our cocoon that we must learn to embrace and work through if we ever wish to grow into something more than what we are. It is one of the hardest battles we will ever wage, primarily because we often don’t recognize what we are fighting. These shadow voices are so deeply ingrained in who we are that we often can’t differentiate their voices from our own. To fight these shadows we must recognize them and pull them into the light. We must scrape away at the years of detritus until we are able to unearth the core of their existence. At the heart of every shadow is a seed, a core belief that we have struggled with repeatedly over the years until they grew far too complex for us to simply manage.
It is far easier to recognize the symptoms of our monster than to acknowledge what it truly is. For me, my monster tended to present itself in stuttering steps and lack of follow-through. It was found in good intentions that were never acted upon or not fully invested in. It was the big dreams that I shied away from when action was required. It was the career I feel into thirteen years ago and never left, even though the passion started to ebb. It was the promotions I applied for and got, even though I knew they were a mistake- but I thought I was supposed to want them. It was the schooling I put on pause when I was dealing with medical issue, but never returned to after they resolved. It’s the novels I never sent to publishers, the way I still hide my computer screen from my partner, even though I’ll send these words out into the ether. It’s the way I cling to a 9 to 5 job because it feels secure, even though my heart pulls me somewhere else. It’s in the way I shrug my shoulders and say “I’ll go back to school when I know what I want to do with my life,” when the truth is: I’ve known my direction for a long time, I just never feel comfortable saying it out loud. Over and over again I have battled with these inner demons without realized that they are all the same monster, just wearing different masks.
The core of my shadow is a lack of confidence in my own abilities, it is a fear of failing. I have never once taken the risk of betting on myself, even though I will go all-in for anyone else. I care too much what other people think, and I always have. I question my instincts and my dreams over and over again until I talk myself out of them. I was a girl with goals and hopes that were larger than life. And in theory I believed in them; at least, I thought I believed in them. But when it came to action, I shied away. I turned down a different road that was paved and well-lit even though I could feel the winds calling me across that other field and through the brambles. I knew I wasn’t living my authentic life, I was settling for a safe life. I convinced myself that the life I was living was good enough; and on those days when it wasn’t, I told myself that it was okay- this was only temporary, and I would figure it out. But I knew all along that those were just words with no backbone.
I don’t know where this fear came from. I’m sure a really good therapist could help me figure it out, but alas- that is another step that I have always hesitated to take (even though I strongly encourage everyone to see one because mental health is important). It’s like I’m afraid of confirming my worst fears. If don’t try, then I can keep dreaming and I don’t have to face the fact that I’m not good enough. I don’t have to worry that I quit a great job to follow a dream that died and left me…where? What is the worst that could happen? What am I afraid of?
For once let’s be honest. I am not weak. No, every time my back has been pushed to the wall, I have proven that I could fight. I am capable of pushing myself beyond the limits I thought I had. When my world cracked and swallowed me whole, I climbed back out all on my own. I kept living when every fiber inside of me demanded to know why I should even bother. I walked through my own personal hell and came out the other side carrying buckets of water for those still engulfed in the flames. I am afraid of failing, and yet every time I was forced to give it my all: I succeeded. When my world crumbled below my feet, I rebuilt beautiful things in that rubble. This fear that I have: this fear of not being good enough, of not being strong enough: it’s unfounded. It’s a lie. It’s a whisper that the shadows desperately want me to believe because it’s the only foothold they have.
To confront your shadow, you must name it. You must stare it straight in the eyes and do whatever it is warning you against. If it’s telling you not to create because you might not be any good- do it anyway. And even if it is awful: stick that work in a frame and place it on your desk with pride. Because it is not just your lopsided attempt of a hedgehog drawing: no, it’s the proverbial sword that you used to slay your monster.
The shadow will not go away overnight. It will be with you for days, weeks, perhaps years. But it will not always control you if you continue to push back against every inch of ground it tries to take. Sometimes all you will gain are tiny steps: actually, it is pretty much always tiny steps. You are going to fight the shadow with a matchstick and not a flamethrower, but my dear, you will win if you are persistent. You will shine that light on every square inch of the monster until he has no where else he can hide.
My matches? They’re small- but they’re working. I started my silly art challenge last week. I am drawing not-so-stellar pictures that I am sharing with you right here on the internet where literally anyone can find them for the rest of eternity. And as cavalier as I like I to act when doing this- it is absolutely terrifying to share a vulnerability, to give you a piece of me that feels weak and unprepared. But it makes me stronger. It erases that fear. Because what is the worst that has happened since I started sharing them? Nothing. No one has even said an unkind word. And even if they did- so what? That speaks more about them than it does about me. Who cares when I’ve found something I enjoy doing in my spare time? And hey- I can always get better. This is just a start.
My other matches? This blog, for one. I’ve started and restarted it for years, but this feels different somehow. My mentality towards my work has shifted. And it feels so damn good to be writing again, and to be so brutally honest with myself while doing so. And even if no one else reads another word I write: that’s okay. Because this is something I’ve always done for me, and this is something I will continue to do simply because I want to.
I’ve spent time refocusing on the things that I enjoy. I’ve reevaluated what I like and don’t like about my job. I’ve researched new learning opportunities and degree programs that could help me move forward with my life. I’ve begun making the financial arrangements required for a future shift. I’ve admitted my fears and my lack of direction. I’ve opened up with those close to me about the things I really want to do with my life and my fears surrounding them. And I’m finally doing something about it. My scrappy side is coming out, and she is one tough little cookie. I’m working on changing my inner dialog so that I stop telling myself I can’t do the things that I love. Perhaps these dreams won’t turn out exactly as I hoped, but that doesn’t mean they won’t lead me somewhere even better; that doesn’t mean they don’t still have a place in my story.
This week I’ll continue on that path. I’ll write awkward sentences and draw some abstract art. I’ll drink plenty of water and eat healthy foods to feed my brain. I’ll spend more time with my motivational self-help books and career guides, and I’ll consider new paths that I never truly let myself examine before. I’ll light one little matchstick after another until the shadow is a memory. That’s the only way to fight this little war.
I could feel the icy grip of tentacles closing around me, hear the whispered shouts and screams of his former victims as he pulled at me, trying to suck me into his realm, to sap the life right out of me. There was no one here to rescue me, not a soul who would know where to look. My Muse would stay locked in that tower forever, thinking I had given up on her.
No, this couldn’t be how it ended. The good guys are supposed to win, they are supposed to climb the mountain, reach the summit, be the hero of their own story. They aren’t supposed to die on an anonymous path in the middle of the woods. This is not how the story goes. I slowly reached for my pack, fighting against the fog that was clouding my brain. The shadow was too focused on his imminent success to even notice the subtle shift in my thoughts, the hardening edge of determination creeping into my mind. I reached for the tiny splinter of wood and struck the match.
Last week I made a little creative side-quest to go along with my “Rescue the Muse” challenge. It was really pretty simple: draw something every single day. It didn’t matter what the subject matter was, what items were used, how technical the piece was or even how “pretty” it came out. The whole purpose was to get out of my own head and start playing again in a medium that I don’t find myself particularly skilled in. All of this was done in an effort to overcome my fixation with perfection. I have a bad habit of dropping ideas when I don’t think I can live up to my personal standard- so bad drawings sounded like a pretty fun way to toy with my inner critic. (We will be dealing with these inner monsters a little bit more this week as we continue on our Muse-Saving Quest).
Now, I anticipated that I would have some fun with this challenge, and I knew going into it that my artistic abilities wouldn’t suddenly be morphing into anything grand or amazing. Don’t believe me? Look at Exhibit A: (virtually slaps sheet of paper onto the screen)
Hehe- I added the photo of Link to give you an idea of what I was attemtping to draw in the middle of the sketch on the left. Lucky for me, Link is an unconditional-love kind of dog, and not much of an art critic. He was just tickled to be included.
While I was anticipating that this challenge would be solely about learning to draw and playing around with circles and lines- I wasn’t prepared for the epiphanies that came with the meandering lines and overworked erasers. I’m not sharing the above sketch with you to show you the kinds of “skills” I’m working with- I’m sharing it because it is the perfect example of what art morphed into. You see, I started this random assortment of drawings by playing with things that I enjoy: my dog, Star Wars (which turned into a very sad baby yoda), the mountains, chairs (apparently I’m a big fan of sitting- honestly, I don’t really know why that one is there). As I was drawing I could feel my insecurities building, I could hear that little voice start to whisper that I wasn’t any good and should just quit. Instead of listening to it, I started drawing a little anxiety monster in the upper right-hand corner (based off of the Mental Illness Monsters created by Toby Allen- look them up, he is phenomenal).
As I finished drawing my little monster I decided to scrawl out the words bouncing around in my brain- don’t worry, it’s written by a lefty in cursive, so I don’t expect anyone to be able to read it. But it says “What does it say about me when I am far better at creating monsters than the things I love?” And below baby yoda, I wiggled out my own reply after a moment’s hesitation, “My sweet, who ever said you shouldn’t love the monsters too?” It was a strange, yet peaceful moment to acknowledge my internal monsters without trying to shove them back into the dark. It was powerful in a way I didn’t expect. I ventured away from the usual cartoons I like to draw, and wound up uncovering an inner-truth I’ve been struggling with.
And here is the real epiphany I never expected when starting on this little journey: art in any form is emotional. That’s what makes it so damn beautiful. It captures truths we didn’t know were inside of us- and even if you can’t ‘read’ it in the artwork, the artist can feel it. As a writer, I have always experienced this moment with words: my words are my lifeblood, they are my link to the world, and they tether me to the things that are important. I am accustomed to the emotions that roil below the surface when I am writing. I never expected to feel that same energy channeled into my random little sketches. Which leads me to believe that it is the act of creation itself that makes us more connected to who we are in this vast world; and not just the particular form we thought we were good at. Art and emotions are intrinsically tied together; you cannot have one without the other.
So I got brave with my pieces after that. I decided to tap into this well that I’ve struggled with. I decided to embrace the emotions that were coursing through me, and allow them to lead me to my next piece. I was able to channel these emotions that I haven’t even been able to adequately write about- instead, they came out in sweeping lines of colored pencil. And while the picture itself isn’t anything grand or spectacular: it has turned into something pivotal for me, a piece of my soul that has been liberated and can now float freely into the world.
The backstory here is pretty important to the outcome. As I have shared before on this blog, at the beginning of 2019 I experienced my first pregnancy loss while in my second trimester. What most people don’t know is that seven months later I lost my second at eight weeks. 2019 was a year of painful transformation for me; I not only had to deal with the pain of the losses themselves, but also the loss of security in a dream I always carried. I was left unmoored in the world, unsure of what a future would look like for me. It’s been a struggle- there’s no nice way to get around that. And I have found it exceedingly difficult because this was the first time in my life that my words failed me. I couldn’t adequately portray the roiling ocean I had tearing me up inside. I didn’t have the words. And that was terrifying in so many ways because my words are all I ever really depended on. Without my voice, I lose who I am as a person. I’ve had these images and feelings buried inside all of this time without the relief of releasing them into the world.
So I started tapping into that well, and I let those silly colored pencils dance across the sheet. And when I was done I found myself staring at the picture I haven’t been able to speak into existence. It is a sketch of a promise lost: two sweet little boys (I always picture them as two little boys) running around the grass together, counting stars, and existing in this beautiful place with one another- a place that I can’t go to yet. And in my head, I see them sitting together, staring at the same moon I look at from my bedroom window as I ask the question I ask them every single night, “Can you feel me when I think of you?”
It was powerful and therapeutic, and so damn good for my soul to see the picture I’ve carried inside all this time. Even in its childlike imperfection: it speaks the truth I couldn’t verbalize, the one that was too large to be ensnared in syllables. But here it was, on a piece of paper that I could hold and touch. It existed somewhere outside of me for the first time in nearly a year.
It reminded me of the importance of this work; these creative endeavors that we take on. Sometimes the tools you have in your kit aren’t adequate for the job that you need done. Sometimes you need to step outside your comfort zone and try something you aren’t very good at- because it will help you grow in so many more ways than you anticipated. Sometimes you need to put down your words in order to speak your truth.
Tipsy Typer 