I have spent the past decade (at least) in search of inner peace. You know the kind, the kind you get when you take a Xanax? No, just kidding (kind of). The kind of peace I get when I complete a really big project, and it is a beautiful evening, and I can sit and watch the sunset knowing I accomplished something. The kind of peace I get at the end of an epic hike, especially in bad weather, and I get to come inside and get warm. The kind of peace that sometimes just happens, in a fleeting moment, on an average day, driving back from Target and watching the light hit the hills during golden hour. This sort of realization, when I find myself thinking “right now, everything is just right, for this moment,” is something that drives me to create. The thing is, I truly believe that the greatest creation we all have is our lives themselves.
When I was 31, I took my tax return and walked down to a tattoo shop to have the words “make your life something beautiful” tattooed the length of my left forearm. I wanted it to be a big reminder of all of this. It isn’t about the huge accomplishments, or if the world around me is behaving the way I want, or if I have money in the bank, or if I can wake up each day and declare “I am happy!” because who can do that? My bio-dad, who died in 2018, was a huge fan of Hunter S. Thompson. His email signature for as long as I knew him read “buy the ticket, take the ride,” and I could not agree more. We are here! Let’s see what this thing can do!
All of this is to say that things are absolutely not the way a lot of us want them to be at the moment. But the point of life isn’t to sit back and wait until they are. Things are happening constantly, like it or not, so we need to get up and make something out of it. THAT is creation. So anytime someone says to me, “I wish I were more creative,” or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” I disagree with the entirety of my being. One way of looking at art is using the creativity that we all have to explore what it means to be alive, for no other reason than the exploration itself. This is where the name of my Substack came from. The question in my mind was “if not art, then what?!” As in, “if I don’t make art, then what will I do?” or “if life isn’t art, then what is it?”.
Creative fire isn’t necessarily one that burns inside me all the time at the same intensity. Doing taxes doesn’t feel like a creative process in the moment. Getting the flu for a week can feel like you’ll never create anything ever again. The thing is, life is all the things. Life also benefits from a wide angle. Pull the camera back and start to finish, it is all a giant creative act. The greatest thing you will ever bring into existence is your own life. As Mary Oliver asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?”
When feeling stuck, lost, and frustrated, the hardest question is still the most important. You don’t need all the answers all the time. You don’t need to feel fire in your soul every morning when you wake up. You don’t need more than what you have right now and the desire to appreciate it as it is. Creativity is the undercurrent of everything we do, and it is easy to spot those who have forgotten this. Whatever it is that you want to create out of this wild and precious life, make every step you take a step towards that end, and don’t be too hard on yourself when you stumble. It’s all just a grand adventure, one step at a time.
You go girl. Speaking your truth and it resonates. x
[insert standing ovation here]