I’m back! It’s time for another update post all about creativity.
This time of year, when school takes over every minute of my life because I have to start the rusty teaching wheels back up again, I feel stressed out, frustrated that it’s taking over my life again, and like an artistic failure. BUT I’m learning to not lean into those feelings. Let me explain.
Teaching can be ALL consuming. This is why I took the title I did for these creativity entries. I’m trying to be honest and show more of myself. And sometimes, teaching makes me feel like there is absolutely no ink left in my creative inkwell.
The start of the school year is one of the most brutal times (in my opinion). It takes every waking minute, especially if there is any change involved (as there is again this year for me AND my husband, who is also a teacher). You have to clean and setup a brand new classroom (if you’re at a new school) so that it’s aestheically pleasing, functional in every way with little children who will potentially destroy it, prep lesson plans and opening activities (which is multiplied about 5 times average if you’re teaching kindergarten), etc. etc. It’s been nonstop weeks of working copious amounts of hours, getting home to inhale food, and fall into bed. There is literally NO time to create when life is like that. And I miss it. And it feels like it will last forever and take over my life.
And every year I have to remind myself that this is NOT my life forever. This is a season.
Funnily enough, this point was hammered home this summer. I took a “once in a lifetime” vacation to Italy with my husband this summer. There was downtime one day (due to a foot injury I had and escaping the horrendous heat) and I remembered I had a book about creativity on my phone that I have been very slowly reading for years: “Real Artists Don’t Starve” by Jeff Goins. I read bits and let it soak in; I highlight bits and go over those from time to time. Well, it had been so long since I’d last looked at it that I decided to start over again and ploughed through several chapters. And this jumped out at me.
“When you are in a season of life when you can’t dedicate hours a day to your craft, it can feel like you’re standing still. But at those times, when the odds are overwhelming and the busyness is suffocating, you still have something to give. The effort may seem small and insignificant, but the work adds up.”
Standing still. That’s what it feels like at this time of the year. My creativity gets put on hold, while the day job gets full reign. I have never felt so seen. And yet, I remember other times in my life when this felt true too. When my dad died, my grief ate up my creativity for a far longer timeframe than I thought. I was also fighting grief most of this summer (over losing our school) and I had to remind myself that this too was a season. I found my creativity again after that first horrible time, and I would again, but it would take time. I needed to give myself the time to heal.
Creativity works in seasons, just like nature. I was reminded of reading Austin Kleon’s book “Keep Going” earlier this year and a passage about a nun who retired and became an artist. She loved observing a tree as it changed through the seasons. I had to look it up when I got home. There was a whole section on creativity working in seasons and I felt synchronicity all over again re-reading that section.
“She talked about how she moved into the apartment in October when the tree was in full leaf, and how she watched it lose its leaves for the rest of the fall. In the winter, the tree was covered in snow. In the spring, little flowers came out and the tree didn’t look like a maple tree at all. Finally, the leaves became recognizable, and the tree was itself again.
‘That, in a way, is very much how I feel about my life,’ she said. ‘Whether it will ever be recognizable by anyone else I don’t know, but I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside me. And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.’
For Kent, the tree came to represent creativity itself. Like a tree, creative work has seasons. Part of the work is to know which season you’re in, and act accordingly. In winter, ‘the tree looks dead, but we know it is beginning a very deep process, out of which will come spring and summer.'”
I too love watching trees. I notice them everywhere in the world. My sister worked in a photo store when we were in high school and she complained that my photos weren’t memorable because there were no people in them. I took photos of trees and mountains, etc. I still do. I want to see the world around the people that live there, not just the people.
Right now the crab apple trees in our back yard still have green leaves, but because there is a delicious crispness to the air that is saying Fall has arrived the tiny crab apples are finally starting to turn color. They’re a lovely melange of yellow, orange and red hidden amongst the green.
Fall is my favorite time of year. It’s this perfect in-between time of year that reminds us of the natural pattern of things. In summer, you can be dying from the heat (I certainly was in Italy!). In winter, you can be shunning the constant cold. Both of these seasons feel like they will last forever (though logically we adults know they won’t). But Fall is that magical and brief time of year that speaks of transition. It is half out of one season, half in another, bursting with those last pops of color as all of nature prepares for what comes next.
Winter can feel like death. Everything shuts down (or falls off) and the world is denuded of color, enrobed in snow and ice. When we and our creativity are at a stand still, it can feel dire like this. But science teaches us to look below the surface. Trees purposely freeze their sap in winter so their branches are stronger to withstand the cold winds that may blow and not snap off. Roots dig deeper for sustenance.
If you, like me, are “standing still,” do not fret. This is a season. Create your crappy art and your crappy rough drafts if you have the time. All those little acts will add up eventually to a spring of blossoms and finally a full summer of fantastic growth.
Winter is never an end. It is just a pause for regrowth. Writing and art making are not an end stop goal. It’s a journey with natural cycles like the seasons, and when you are a writer or an artist or any type of creative, the journey keeps going. It is part of who we are and it won’t stop. So find peace and solace in that. And maybe go watch a tree.
