Creativity

In my last post, I wrote about anxiety, a companion for as long as I can remember. I imagine it should seem obvious, but I have just (!) made the connection between my anxiety and my creative spirit: when I have insufficient time to imagine or create, my anxiety increases. At this ripe age of 45, the lesson is, apparently, “never stop paying attention to your being because you still might learn some things.”

Perhaps this is why women seem to flourish in our later thirties, forties, fifties, and on. We start to make connections to and simultaneously honor our needs, desires, ways of thriving, and all the impediments to those that life, society, and family have erected: the expectations, shoulds, and very real responsibilities that sap us dry if we let them. But as life goes on, more and more women start to say, “Fuck this. I am tired, and I have done my damn part.” It’s liberating, albeit vexing at times; to let go, to consider disappointing or angering, to care less because you’re caring more for self. It can feel downright illicit though I suspect most of us describe our reactions towards self as selfish. Isn’t that rich?! Self-honoring as selfish. I swear y’all, women have been sold the shittiest grab bag of plastic crap.

Yes, there is entirely too much self-absorbed, self-preferencing, no-generosity-of-spirit in the world. Sometimes the social contract seems more than threadbare. But as I sit on my porch, relishing a day of breeze and birds and bugs and quietude (yes: my children have been away since 11a), it seems self-ish may be worthy of reconsideration.

There isn’t much in the way of etymological history regarding selfish. One of the earliest mentions I found was, perhaps not surprisingly, by a 17th century Protestant. Jesus, the puritanical guilt over everything. [Possibly, at that time, men experienced similar “guilt” as women, were they not “Christian” enough, but still; I am sure women experienced more. ]

Anyway, per an etymological dictionary, in the 17th C, synonyms of selfish included: self-seeking (1620s), self-ended and self-ful.” Firstly, it should be clear why I put that in quotes, beyond not wishing to plagiarize: IT HAS NO OXFORD COMMA! I was once a doubter but am now a fully-converted believer. Use the Oxford. Do you want to eat grandpa?

And secondly, let’s take a close look at those synonyms.

1. Self-seeking: could not this mean searching for a greater understanding of self? Methinks it could, and more power to the person seeking!

2. Self-ended: this sounds antiquated, vaguely sexual, and self-absorbed. This is a definite contender for an accurate replacement of selfish.

3. Self-ful: if one is not ful of self, one is, as it stands mathematically, somewhat empty. So, we could imagine that ful of self is totally self-focused. But is that bad? Could it mean that one is self-aware enough to fashion a self in part derived from Self and in part derived from identities related to others? Caring for, working with/for, in relation with/to? Perhaps self-ful could be considered as a holistic understanding of Self which includes a variety of interests and connection. Indeed, the -ful is “a quasi-suffix attached to nouns denoting a containing thing…” But is the containing vessel exclusive, or is it porous? This seems consequential to me.

Regardless, the understanding of selfish since the 1600s seems largely unchanged. I’m not here tonight to redefine or re-connote a word. I’ve had two glasses of rosé and my kids will be home soon. My point is that ugly self-absorption is not the same is understanding and honoring one’s self and one’s needs. I am never worse off emotionally than when I ignore myself. And here we can circle back to creativity and me. #selfish or #selfaware?

The pandemic has, essentially, been an experiment in forcing most people to ignore the lives they’d fashioned for themselves in the Before so as to “successfully” survive the WTF Now. In my case, the then was a tiny bit of time for me surrounded by the boys, Tom, the pets, our house, volunteering, and activism. It was tenuous, y’all. And then, a barbed sphere of profound assholery emerged, and my tenuous balance was shot to Uranus.

ASSHOLE!

I held up really well for a very long time. I am, admittedly, a high-functioning human. I’ve honed this well over decades of being judged and misunderstood and sheepish for and about my emotional self. To err is too risky; to be perfect smooths all seams.

But the hurricane, winter, Susan Fucking Collins and politics, more than 14 months straight of no school for Jack, and this girl began to crumble.

My internist: “How about calling a therapist?”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

My husband: “Do you want to call RS?”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

Some friends: “Do you want to call a counselor? Look into an anti-depressant? I have, I have, I have.”
Me: “Please, what would/could that do? Nothing can change right now.”

But you know what? Shit can get harder. So I called RS, and immediately everything was improved. RS is amazing. She is 85 years old, maybe more. She is an absolute beast of a Woman. I love her. She has white hair, is always impeccably dressed, always has fresh flowers and flourishing African violets everywhere, and has the most profound appreciation of boundaries I have EVER WITNESSED. I’m telling y’all, she will cut you off if you’re in heaving sobs and time’s up. I have learned a great deal from her.

The essential message was: “How are you tending your creative self? And how are you setting boundaries that are healthy for you?”

Readers, as you may have surmised, I was not at all tending my creative self, beyond the sporadic-yet-obsessive cross stitch session. #SoManyCrossStitchedThings And boundaries? 😂🤣

In the crush of everything, my natural inclination was, is, to jettison Me to keep everything else afloat. But that is just not sustainable, and though I seem to have learned some profound lessons at 45, others remain elusive. They remain in the realm of learned-over-decades-is-selfish versus live-well-and-Self-ish.

Yesterday, Dad and I went to the dump and unburdened ourselves of much material weight. I had lunch with him and Mom and taught Mom to sell things on Facebook Marketplace before going to Michael’s for some canvasses and gesso. Then, I returned home, kissed everyone, and set up my long-dormant easel in the backyard. I opened the art bin Mom made me decades ago: “Nichols” written in Sharpie on every brush; my glass Mona Lisa jar-with-screen brush cleaner still completely usable, including bonus solid residue from the last time I painted; an ancient jar of pink soap; a giant tube of Titanium White; my old smock; a palette knife.

To be honest, I felt sheepish sitting there, my easel and a canvas propped atop a cheap TV tray on admittedly-thriving fescue. What could I create? Who was I to make art without a plan on a sunny Saturday afternoon? There were baskets of laundry to fold, a birthday present to wrap, dinner to consider, and so on.

But, oh, my creative self: at this point just feisty embers but definitely there; pissed, tired, and in need of oxygen. So I sat with my self-doubt and discomfort and considered how much I love Hunt Slonem’s bunny paintings and how wholly Tom does not care about Hunt Slonem, oil painting, or bunnies beyond a cassoulet, and so certainly does not want to spend what it costs to buy one. I sat with all that, and then I just opened the tub of gesso and tried to recall all my years of art lessons with Ms. Melton.

I considered the strawberry soda I liked to drink and the confidence I felt in her room and the longevity of lovingly-stored brushes and paints and Lyquin and sense-memory. Afterwards, I looked at my painting of bunnies, and honestly? I was pleased. “Good” or “bad” isn’t the point. The exercise and product are.

What does it mean when we believe in what we once knew and act on that? On what we once could do and made time for?

Why do we stop doing those things and that? And what is the cost?

For me, at least, the cost is great. It is increasingly one I’m not willing to barter. Even if it takes a low point and RS to remind me of the value of holding my line.

I have always thought that artistic genius and mental “illness” are meeting points on a circle versus end points on a line. This is not remotely to say that I consider myself any sort of artistic prodigy or mentally unwell. What it is is but a reconfiguration of the denotation and an acknowledgment of the porous membrane between wellness and not. What was once selfish may actually be the self-seeking of a self-ful self. In that is plenty of room for love and compassion and care of others WHILE keeping one’s own core vibrant and alive.

In living a truest self, the possibility of isolation always threatens. Some will find your boundaries, your expression, your very being unappetizing. So. So! So? “So what!” is painful but also freeing. At least I think so, now. In this moment of delighted clarity, I urge you to go plant, paint, sow/sew, read, think, water, love, give, share and also to do all of that for your Self.

Parenting at my age and theirs

Although lovely in many respects, this summer was an interesting one for me, surprising and hard in ways that I neither anticipated nor welcomed. I believe that difficulty is often a sign that one’s current course should be reconsidered, altered, and/or learned from. That said, challenging times sometimes come when you’re not remotely interested in reconsidering, adjusting the sails, or learning new techniques. And yet we must stay dynamic, for life and those around us surely do.

I wrote earlier that it was a real limp to the finish getting the boys to camp. Once home, relaxation did not wash over me like a fragrant and refreshing breeze. Rather, I felt anxious, had trouble sleeping, and generally found it hard to settle.

Initially, I tried to keep busy not least because I love feeling productive, but also because, in honesty, busyness makes it harder to sit and ponder what isn’t quite right, what isn’t quite working. I taught myself to repair wood trim, puttying, sanding, smoothing, painting, and reveling in the way much of the wainscoting and trim in our house took to the refurbishing. In general, I feel that new coats of paint on your walls and mulch in your yard are like the best red lipstick out there; they finish the picture and make it shine. But there is also something satisfying about learning to do things instead of paying for another to do them; self-sufficiency feels good.

Tom and I gutted our laundry room and then redid it, hanging new cabinets, repairing and painting the walls, reconnecting the plumbing after the new counter and our old sink were reinstalled. That, too, felt good. Useful. A lovely way to spend time together during a summer we couldn’t travel so instead stayed here.

But in the background, I considered the busyness and the relative inability to relax. I realized I didn’t much know what relaxing even meant anymore. For thirteen years I’ve been on the parenting hamster wheel. I’ve loved a whole lot of it, but the day-to-day relentlessness of raising and guiding kids, ferrying them, keeping their appointments and cooking for them, managing the household and the pets and the volunteer work and the yard and and and. All that alters our courses more than we know, even when we try to maintain selves.

For me, both out of intentional and loving input and without realizing a thing, my mother-son dyads turned my sails out of my wind. There are many reasons for this, and I assess no blame. But I do see this summer as a come to jesus with myself, and that’s a good thing.

The week before we picked the boys up, I started thinking hard about what I needed to do to build in time for self care while parenting. The kids are 10 and 13; they’re not toddlers, they’re not incompetent. They spend six weeks a year in a place without electricity or running water, a place in which every single day they have to make multiple decisions, about how to spend their time and how to be as people. Do archery? Go on an extended hiking trip? Assert their feelings or stay quiet? Join with friends or do what their inner voices are suggesting?

That is them learning to be. And as they forge paths like those, I need to be doing the same, relearning what it is to live meaningfully and wholly with the kids here so that when they’re not, life is still full and balanced and not a fatigued mess of catch up and question.

One of my oldest, dearest friends is also a really good mother from whom I’ve picked up not a few insightful tidbits about parenting. She mentioned something about a chore jar, a bucket of popsicle sticks with a chore on each from which her children pull a job every morning. I stole this idea immediately upon learning about it and made a jar specific to my crew. Some are silly like “Have a dance party to a crazy song” while others are serious such as “do the dishes” or “clean the litter boxes.” Since their first morning home, the kids have pulled a stick and done the chore. Jack and I have taken two great selfies (with real smiles), Oliver has learned how to do a load of laundry, both have organized their desks and played with and brushed the cats. Both dreaded cleaning the litter boxes, but this is not my problem and Jack got over it quickly (Ol has yet to pull that one).

And what I have found, as with so many things related to parenting, consistent, non-negotiable rules, like the chore jar and our longstanding No-Screen Monday, make whining and push back much (!) less likely.

Over the summer, we also had reading hour every single day. That was as much because they had required summer reading and book club work as the fact that I desperately wanted to read through the stack of great books that beckon on the regular. And so we sat together and read, and it was nice. And not negotiable.

Some might say that of course these things should have been happening already, and maybe that’s right. But while I have kids who like to read, it’s never their first choice. And while I’ve always asked for help from them, I’m sick of needling and reminding. The set reading hour and daily pull from the chore jar cut the crap completely, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

We have never given the boys an allowance, in large part because they get a decent amount of birthday and Christmas money from generous grandparents and aunts but also because I don’t feel that making your bed or helping at home necessarily warrants payment. That’s a family decision, and I’m not judging allowances; I grew up getting one, and it taught me a lot.

But my boys tend towards laziness and they live privileged lives, so I’ve decided that the money they have beyond gifts will have to be earned. Several years ago, Tom and I told them they had to earn all spending money for trips we took them on. What they have chosen to purchase since then has been infinitely more thoughtful and frugal than before. And now, as Jack enters his teen years and wants things like more Magic cards and what not (which I’m not buying), he decided to start a lawn business in our neighborhood and has done a great job. He’s learning what it really takes to earn $10 and the thought that needs to go behind purchases when your budget is limited. He’s learning to correspond professionally and to keep track of appointments, and because of his income, he now has a bank account and knows how to deposit, withdraw, and all that jazz. I love it. It is beyond compare to watch from behind as he asks the guys at Dice City if he can see a specific Magic card, decides to buy it, pulls out his wallet, makes change, and says thanks.

This guidance towards and enforcement of independence allows for space for me. It will allow me to search for ways to make meaning in my life that are just for me even if they involve others. I’m teaching myself Irish and, impossibly and yet actually, I am taking two literature classes at Politics & Prose (my favorite local bookstore) on four Friday afternoons in late October/early November. The logistics of making that happen were ridiculous: class from 3:30-5:30 and 6-8p on Fridays? That is right smack in the afternoon frenzy of carpool, weekend commencement, dinner, sleepovers, etc. But instead of missing this chance as I have so often before, I registered and then figured out how to make it work. I am excited for myself and also for what this models for the boys. I am Mom but I am also Emily.

On the arts and their value

Ensconced in a transparent plastic chair with file cabinets of sheet music on one side and a colorful array of instruments on the other, with bleats and squeaks and scales and low frequencies radiating from studios all around, I turn a page in my book and smile. Mozart, the resident dog, ambles over for a scratch behind his ears.

Although I've little musical ability, in Middle C each weekend, as I wait while Jack and Oliver finish their lessons, I feel at home. The test notes and amiable chatter and warm ups and expanding lung capacities are individuals at practice in a place that both challenges and nurtures them. I gravitate toward places like that and the people who both work and learn there.

I felt a similar homeyness during the AWP conference earlier this month, despite the fact that literally thousands were in attendance, and I knew approximately five. Armed with my schedule, badge, and a bag of books -I never go anywhere without reading material; do you?- I made my way from panel to panel, toggling between the convention center and the elephantine Marriott across the street. Lost among friends, really. And happily so.

This is not to say that all musicians and writers and artists are nice, expansive people. Good grief- of course they aren't. Some are egotistical and competitive, and others are pathologically shy. Some are troubled while others prefer words or paint to people. Many have wrestled with periods of feeling awkward or different. Many still do. Some have experienced abuse or trauma or stunning loss. Many are delightfully eccentric, some fit every stereotype.

I've often wondered just how mental health, creativity, and intelligence co-exist, for many have written of "madness" as creative fire, of angst as a torturous fuel, of tragedy and loss as a sort of generative phoenix. A spherical spectrum seems to fit the bill of any synchronicity better than a linear one. 

Most every artist I've ever encountered relishes or at least feels the utter need to get at the root of who they are, who we are, and to express those selves in some way. Communities of artists are like multi-celled organisms undulating toward kernels of truth and understanding, toward justice and inclusion. The arts push the boundaries of what is and should be accepted, what is and should be normed. They teach us empathy, allow us to better understand the beauty and strength in difference, usher in respect and tolerance, and diminish fear and hate.

It is not hard to understand why dictators seek to control messaging and especially artistic expression. So really, stay sharp right now in the face of alternative facts (bullshit), lies messaged as news (also bullshit), the spread of fear versus hope (carnage, anyone?), and attempts to quash the humanities (the Trump admin's desire to cut the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, disallow peaceful protests, etc). 

Politics aside, this post is actually a piece about me and the gratitude I feel for the arts.

When I was a young child, my parents (who both studied art history in college and have collected art for decades), sister, and I often played two games: one was an artist and artwork flashcard-based gig (more fun that it now sounds), and the other was a sleuthing game in which the player whose turn it was donned a blindfold, reached into a paper bag to pluck a cardboard object from a large assortment, felt its curves and angles, size and stature, and ventured a guess as to what it was.

I attended summer arts camps and took drawing and painting lessons for years. I have spent more than a night in Corning, NY, because my father wanted to see the glass museum there and specifically a piece, Jay Musler's Cityscape, in it. I remember that our B&B smelled like tequila and lime and that the proprietor was a zany woman who sang "Customers, come here!" when we knocked on the wrong door. Cityscape remains vividly seared in my mind, a stunning piece of glass rendered meaningful in a gifted man's hands.

Courtesy of the Corning Museum; isn't this magical? Although sadly, I read it so much differently than I did when younger. Now, though still beautiful, it strikes me as environmental doomsday.

And yet, with all that steeping in the arts, I wasn't comfortable expressing myself artistically until my thirties. The general aging process has helped, but I wouldn't be nearly as complete a person as I am (and let's be clear, it's a real work in progress with more work to do; likewise it's not painless!) without open artistic expression which began with cooking, segued into photography, slid easily into blogging about those things, and has evolved into so much more.

I don't consider myself a Writer yet (though I aspire to be such), but I do know that writers and artists and those who truly appreciate them are my truest tribe. The sensitivity and openness, the shared experience of some struggle and the gentle embrace of what has challenged each of us, the multitude of identities lived and loved and celebrated...all of those things are treasures, gifts, and each time I experience, witness, or grow from relationships forged in and around arts communities, I become more me. More of the me I want to be. More of that fully unhusked kernel of self truth.