creativity – Uncovering Real

We did it!!!!

For the last 12 weeks, we’ve worked our way through our homes and spaces with the goal of heading into the holiday season with more calm, noticing what works, subtracting what doesn’t, and adding tiny habits that make our lives feel gentler. No perfect-home goals here. Just small steps toward calmer spaces and truer reflections of who we are.

As we move into a season that can feel loud and fast, I hope you are heading into it with a little more space to breathe.

So…how are you doing?

I’ll go first: I was doing okay. I was doing the things. Not all the things, not all the time. But I was doing the things. And then I decided to add one more thing.

Then another.

and before I knew it I had like 57 big giant things on my calendar over the next month. Why do I do this???

It’s easy to feel like a failure and let things slip. But last night I had a bit of a revelation.

Yesterday I saw a contractor my husband had scheduled arrive on our security camera and felt a spike of panic. I didn’t know they were coming. I hadn’t “gotten the house ready.”

Then I realized: the house was fine.

They could walk in and get to what they needed. Yes, a few things had to be moved where they were working, but there was space to move them. There wasn’t an avalanche of shoes at the front door.

Even in this very busy season, I can feel the difference. I may be exhausted heading to bed, but my clothes are (usually) set out and tomorrow’s coffee is pre-measured. Less last-minute scramble. Less searching.

Over the last three months we’ve tackled making our beds, setting out our clothes, simplifying mornings, doing the dishes, streamlining pantries, smoothing our entrances and exits, and making space for creativity.

We’re ready for finals.

The Final Exam

For our final exam, we have two images to compare/contrast and two questions to think about. That’s it. Oh, and it’s an open book exam – feel free to look back at any of our notes from this past semester.

Image One:

(Where’s Waldo crowd scene)

Remember these books? “Where’s Waldo” has entertained thousands simply by hiding one striped character in a chaos of distractions.

Before you get too distracted trying to find Waldo, let’s move on to image two:

Image Two:

(Social distancing Waldo cartoon by Clay Bennett for the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Now for our questions:
Which Waldo was easier to find?
What made it easier?

Here’s what I’m learning:

So often in life we create that first, harder version for ourselves, because we think the solution to not being able to find something is to add more. We want to find “Waldo” but end up burying him in a crowd.

Some examples that may or may not be personal testimonies:

I can’t find matching socks. So I buy a dozen more pairs of socks so I never lose a matched pair of socks again. Then the next time I need a pair of socks, I have to dig through a sock drawer version of “Where’s Waldo” looking for what I want.
My kids can’t find a snack they like in the pantry. So I buy 3 kinds of bars, 4 boxes of fruit strips and a Costco variety box of snacks. Now my kids have to swim through a life size Where’s Waldo page to find anything and the fruit expires before they can eat it all.
“I want more rest, more creativity, more joy.” So I buy the latest gadgets, tools, and systems promising to make my life easier. Instead, they add to the sea of tiny red-and-white imposters crowding out Waldo.

Adding more didn’t help me find anything. It just made more places to lose stuff.

The key to finding Waldo was never in just adding more.

It’s in less.

Like the socially distanced cartoon of Waldo above, when we simplify and remove the excess, what we are looking for is so much easier to find.

Rest and creativity aren’t found by piling on more.

They show up when we remove the distractions and create space for them.

That’s what these last twelve weeks together have been about: bedrooms and pantries, doorways and nightly resets, minimizing and giving tiny gifts to your future self:

Simplify, subtract, create space…and what matters slowly becomes easier to find.

Peace, calm, and joy don’t arrive because we do or buy more.
They show up when we make room.

This is the work – and the gift we’ve been giving ourselves for twelve weeks.

Let’s keep going.

As the days get shorter and the dark gets deeper, it’s all the more important to care for our bodies, our minds, and our souls, and one of the most powerful ways we care for our souls is to create.

Creating gives us space to process our world and ourselves.

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

Creating reminds us of meaning, assigns meaning and helps us express meaning.

Creating leaves space for the unsolved, the wonder, the mystery.

This week we are creating space for creativity.

Take a moment and think about what you create.

Don’t think you are creative?

There are countless ways we create.

Some are more obvious, creating items we can see and touch.: Painters, sculptors, paper artists, repurposers, woodworkers.

Some people create experiences that exist for a moment (or sometimes captured for longer): Singers, dancers, musicians, speakers.

And there are hundreds of other ways we create:

Creating a meal for ourselves/our families

Creating a safe space for conversations with a friend

Creating solutions for problems

Each of those creations need space – mentally, emotionally, and often spatially – for creation to take place.

This week we are creating room for our art.

This will look a little different for everyone.

Perhaps creating space looks like adding an “create” block to your calendar and telling yourself and others, “I am booked from 9-11 on Saturday.”

Or maybe it means gathering your supplies in one place. You may not have a designated writing desk or craft table, but could you collect your essentials in one basket/drawer/tote?

To make space to create (like most things in life), we need to make choices. We have to acknowledge we can’t do everything at once.

I LOVE making crocheted pumpkins in fall. I keep a basket of yarn, needles, and stuffing by the couch so I can have everything I need to make pumpkins from start to finish as I sit and stare out the window.

I’m planning a gallery show in a few weeks, showcasing some of my repurposed and upcycled art. In order to prepare for that show, I had to take some time this week to say goodbye to pumpkin season. My tools, stuffing, yarn, etc got packed back up into their suitcase in the basement, contained and tucked away for next season. Now the basket by the couch can be reassigned for my repurposed art in progress. As I switched out my projects for the season, I also came across a few supplies for a project I would LOVE to learn or or get better at. But I know I do not have the capacity in this season, and so keeping them just means they whisper to me every time I walk by them, like a non-stop audible to-do list; and they make it harder for me to clear things out of the way to create the art I’m able to do in this season.

As you think about your space to create, take a moment to acknowledge – We can’t do ALL the things. What is your creative focus in THIS season? Not “what did I have time for before I had this job/kids, etc”, not “what do I want to do when I ‘have a little more time?’”

What one thing can you make space to focus on now?

Let’s get creative with our weekly homework assignments:

101: Choose your one thing for this season of your life. Is it writing? Dancing? Stop motion videos of felted from and toad doing gentle homemaking tasks? (man, I miss seeing that Instagram account. Does it still exist?)

Once you’ve chosen your “thing,” dedicate space for it:

A table near an outlet for your laptop and notebook.
A few hours on your calendar to focus on your craft.
A basket by the couch for wool and a felting needle to make your frog a tiny hat.

201: Each day, clear away something that doesn’t serve your current creative outlet:

An unfinished project that whispers shame every time you move it.
A pile of materials that belong to a past season.
An hour of doomscrolling that doesn’t actually calm your spirit.

Extra Credit Reflection: When I look at things I’ve kept (unfinished projects, bins of materials, bookmarked ideas, calendar appointments) What stories are they telling?
Are the supplies and ideas for who I am now? Or who I was? Or who I wish I were? What would it look like to honor the season I’m actually in, instead of waiting for a “better” one?
Can I release something that belongs to a different version of me, so the current me has room to breathe, process, and create?

Tag: creativity

BTS Week 12: Finals

The Final Exam

BTS Week 11 Creativity (minus clutter)