It’s the first Saturday of the month, wherein I get real and talk about the pursuit of creativity.

So, I’m still struggling. In fact, if anything, I’m struggling more this month than I was last month. Last month I was struggling with a multitude of hang-ups and you may remember I said, “Just create the crap!” I made a picture to go with that and that broke some sort of barrier I’d been fighting. I’m not a fan of the poop emoji (as I’m not a huge fan of scatalogical humor), but … what else is crap but crap? It felt appropriate.

But then a bombshell was dropped. No one has cancer, no one is dying, we haven’t fought off any natural disasters. BUT work went topsy turvy. Remember me saying we fought last fall to keep our school open and won? I felt heard and was proud of how hard my husband and I (and all the school community) fought. I was relieved the school board had heard our voices and realized this wasn’t a good decision. BUT I was wrong in all of that.

After I posted last month, we were informed (during Kindness week in February) that our school was once again on the chopping block due to a budget crisis in our school district. And this time, there wasn’t going to be time to fight, or gather info, or anything. They told us the timeline right before Valentine’s day: the school board vote on this issue would happen in two weeks on the 24th. There was great debate that went late into the night, but ultimately it was decided to close our school. Right before parent teacher conferences. That first week was one of the roughest I’ve felt in a few years. I was trying to be strong for the kids (who were scared), for all the parents I had to meet with (for conferences), and for my coworkers (who are like a family). I cried a LOT.

Once again, my creativity took a hit. BUT I’ve learned about this from previous rough times (like when my dad was dying and passed away from cancer). I remembered Maslow’s hierarchy and focused on taking care of my basic needs. I slept, I went through the daily motions, and I went into survival mode.

But then, Lisa Bardot shared her March daily prompt list. She too is struggling and decided to focus this month on whimsy. The first week’s focus was animals with flowers. Just add all the unnecessary beautiful things for no reason but “whimsy.” And I was SO there for it.

Remember last month when I talked about the importance of play? Well, this was it. I’d fallen in love with making folk art from a project I’d played with a couple of years ago. I thought it would be fun to explore (I even read books on it), but I never did anything with it. SO I decided NOT to work on “projects” with a purpose and instead, focus on the meditative play and the words of comfort so many had spoken to me. I took those little animals, added all sorts of floral and folk elements, limited my color palette, and forced myself to NOT dig into perfectionism. In fact, I forced myself to let errors remain and to NOT go into perfect hand-created fonts. Just create the comfort. These were the result (AI disturbance has been plastered on all art, so I hope you can see them).

Doing these really helped me to survive the last few days of school before spring break. Despite all the bad news and icky meetings and crap that keeps getting dumped on us, these brought a tiny measure of sunshine. I know the kids will all have a school to go to. I know we will have jobs (though I have NO clue what or where or what the heck will happen over the next several months). There’s a LOT of uncertainty going forward and even now I’m fighting tears and overwhelm. But I know I’m not alone. There’s a LOT of hard stuff going on right now. We’re all taking the hit.

I saw this post by Oliver Jeffers and I couldn’t agree more.

I hope, despite the darkness in the world all around us, you are able to find some small measure of comfort, hope, and love. And take care of yourself.