Over the last two years, I’ve thought a lot about my creative process and how it sustains me, yet how little energy I give it. In the year or two prior to my last relationship, my creative self was fully alive. I was drawing, writing tons, making art wherever and whenever, thinking critically about everything that came across my synapses, questioning everything I thought I knew and really living. Circumstances of that relationship and its unfolding led me away from my creativity in such a slow, consuming way that I hardly realized what was missing. Until I felt lost. And when I tried to swim to the surface, to write and create, the algae sitting atop the stagnant water blocked the sun. My fears were realized, my inner critic fed ravenously on my failures and I all but stopped writing for almost 10 years. That part of me that needs to create, to make, was not supported by that partner either. In fact what kept me most alive was often looked down upon, shunted aside, mocked even. Those were some dark times people, no joke. It was a hole that I wasn’t going to get out of as long as all of the cards in my hand stayed the same.
Two years ago, when that relationship was unraveling, I started to see some light. I moved into my own space, I reclaimed walls, corners, tables, time. I could do what I wanted. I didn’t have to worry about the looks, the negative energy, the criticism. I started to uncover bits of myself covered in ash from the volcanic explosion that had been my life. I began settling back into myself, who I truly am, rather than what I’d told myself I was content with.
Yet still, there is a struggle to really juice my brain and squeeze out the creative flow. Life offers too many distractions… children, work, the internet, etc. Filtering it all into the places it needs to be in order to have the energy to devote to creating feels like the greatest challenge of this life. I am a work in progress, just like everyone else. So I continue to try to not only create, but create a life for myself in which making and creating are a part of every day and become woven so thickly into my life that it is who I am.
A few weeks ago I stumbled on a blog post here or there, I can’t remember where, that inadvertently inspired an idea that that I hope will get me back on the track I want to be on.
Doodling. Daily. One page. That’s it. No more. No less.
I used to doodle constantly, there is not a notebook for folder from my schooling days that isn’t littered with doodles. I designed my prom dress while doodling in history class (and eventually got a seamstress to bring it to fruition). Mostly it was an exercise in keeping me awake, but I remember times when I really got into what I was doodling and really created something that had energy to it.
About a week ago I pulled my journal onto my lap right before bed and put my pen to a blank page. I felt a bit of the inner critic creeping up at times, but mostly I just swooped and swirled and twirled lines of beautiful nothingness. It’s not a regular practice yet, but it’s getting there. I have indifference about whether or not I’ll share them on this blog; my lack of a scanner answers that dilemma for the moment. But it’s really not about the product, it’s about the process and where I need to be is in it. And so I start, but dipping a toe in, every day. Dip, dip, doodle.
