Tag: nature

Silence, Stillness, Observation: Creativity In The Pandemic Era

 

Yellow and black bee rests on a concrete sidewalk
Worky work, busy bee.

Even four or so weeks into Pandemic 2020, memes pushing productivity over peace, especially for artists, persist.

I was talking with my friend Irene, co-owner of the amazing local restaurant Dylan’s Oyster Cellar, after she posted a quote by Toni Morrison on the artist’s role during societal upheaval.

First, the quote from the extraordinary Ms. Morrison:

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I have been struggling with my own creative practice since this began, and I know many others who have struggled as well. It has been hard for me to put into words why I react negatively to the quote above, but talking with Irene helped clarify my thoughts around this particular time and place.

This pandemic reminds me of 9/11. When the planes hit, the U.S. stopped. Planes were grounded, people stayed home. For four days the bones of the U.S. were exposed, flesh laid bare in the sunshine.

And for many years after, there was no art surrounding this event. Writers talked about how hard it was to write anything around that day – the risk of trivializing something so catastrophic was high, and there was a kind of respect that silence afforded that words and dance and painting could not.

Even now, art surrounding 9/11 is mostly commemorative, writing is more reportage than creative. It is missing a “call-to-action” element, though, which seems appropriate and thoughtful. After the boo-yah, racist energy of going to war subsided, the creative work from 9/11 is memorial, not activist or nationalist.

This is not to say that coronavirus-specific work isn’t being done, but for some reason there seems to be a sense of social justice-style urgency surrounding this pandemic. Like all artists have to be productive and write towards what’s happening right now, and if you are not working in that way, you aren’t really worth much as an artist.

What about people whose work was not in that style to begin with? I write about love and nature, and I paint abstract impressionist paintings. I believe that love and nature are inherently healing; I don’t need to manipulate those things in order to micromanage healing or connection. I paint intuitively, as many layers as it needs and for however long it goes until it’s “done.” My work is not oriented towards social justice, and it never has been.

But, if I am honest (which I always try to be), I have not felt much of a creative impulse, or rather, the creative impulse I have felt has been different this past month. I have felt a deep need to be in the woods, by the water, away from people. My fellow humans are weaponized with virus right now, and many of them are not exercising the sense god gave a turnip. Avoiding them makes sense to me.

Meanders in nature, looking for edibles and studying them, writing recipes and experimenting with teas and tinctures: this is where my creativity has rested for the past several weeks, and I am here for it. It’s comforting to provide for myself with what’s available, to watch how nature is responding to this strange weather (no winter to speak of and spring temperatures that fluctuate wildly, with fewer flowers bursting, not like 2019’s ostentatious floral gluttony), and to winnow the wheat of my life and relationships from the chaff.

Of course, no one should sail their ship guided by memes on the Instagram, but in the small sphere of my blog I am here to advocate for silence, stillness, and observation.

If you are an artist struggling to find a voice in this time, listen.

If you are normally running yourself ragged with work and school and kids and art, let the stillness settle into mystery.

If you have felt that the world is spinning too fast and all is a blur, watch.

I give you permission to exist in this state of dormancy, like the slow trickle of water under the frozen stream. It’s ok to not be churning out creative work. It’s ok to feel stuck, blocked, stymied, and frustrated.

Everything passes, including this virus and this life and this time.

Silence, stillness, observation: creativity in the pandemic era can take many forms. Let yourself be ok with whatever form yours takes.

Now a question: how has your creative practice changed, if at all, over the past month?

Take care, be well, wash your hands.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Poem: Mindful By Mary Oliver

Found on a walk – someone other than KWeeks also moves interesting pieces of wood around

My grandmother turns 102 in December. She was born during the Spanish flu, lived her teen years through the Great Depression, married a husband who left the day after they married for World War II, and is now on lockdown in an assisted living facility that has seen zero cases of COVID because they acted early and fast. She is lonely but resigned and waiting patiently for the pall to lift.

This poem today is for her. I think she might think it was pretty but not go much farther than that. My wish for her, as a person whose time on earth is closer its end than its beginning, is that she might be able at some point in the remainder of her life, see or hear something that kills her with delight.

Obvi, not literally. Good lord.

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

What The World Needs Now…

Just in time for allergy season, a little opportunistic horseweed on the balcony. Nature is wise.

Now back at home from Casa Weeks, alone in my studio with the kitty and the inexplicable hum of 83, which has heretofore been mostly silent, the one thing I keep coming back to is nature.

I have the deepest urge to plant something. It’s a deeply hopeful act – shoving a tiny seed into wet, dark soil, believing that it will rise its face to the sun over weeks or months.

Meister Eckhart said, “What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.”

This dovetails nicely with yesterday’s urge to slow down, be still, reflect.

So I will head to Falkenhan’s in Hampden to pick up some spinach and mixed greens, maybe radish, which I don’t love but which comes up very quickly and gives nearly instant gratification – a comfort always but especially right now.

What are you planting these days – literally or metaphorically?

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 9 & 10

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

Wildness.

The weekend is an orgy of relaxing and resetting, sorely needed by Khristian and myself. February is always hard, and this one seemed particularly difficult for both of us.

Saturday is filled with naps and a delicious frittata.

I spend a substantial amount of time Sunday morning reading The Book of Delights and petting the cat. This morning itself is a delight with its rainy dripping and water sounds in the gutters outside and my love sleeping softly and warmly next to me.

We have sprung forward, and I am glad of it. Another milestone, another sign that the literal and metaphorical darkness of winter is lifting.

I am unexpectedly glad at this day for no reason other than the sweet wet smell of rain and the purring hum of the cat and the warmth of Khristian next to me.

This morning, once we are ourselves lifted out of bed, we have fried eggs on toast with arugula (to complement without revisiting yesterday’s spectacular frittata with arugula, sweet peppers, and onions).

We wile the day again away, dreaming of our land in New Brunswick that we will visit next week, before we go to an unspectacular poetry reading. We go our separate ways after – me to yoga, Khristian to his studio – and meet a hawk in the parking lot where Khristian drops me off. I take the disappointing picture above but feel this wildness is a gift, another unexpected gladness, on a day just like any other day.