Both writing and art have felt difficult to impossible lately. It feels like dreck. Like shit. Like vomit, when I try to create. Nothing feels good or right or worthy. Words are stale smoke, and my paintings are meaningless and formless – the colors run and blur to nothing.
I took myself down to the spit today, and forced a page of writing in an old leather journal that hasn’t seen script or cracking in over a year. Better than nothing, I suppose. And tonight, this attempt at putting words on the screen is another desperation. I’ve been told that trying is worthy. And that if I keep trying, the words will come eventually.
But what if that’s not true? What if I keep producing this….whatever this is? Forever? How long can a creative slump last? I’ve heard nightmarish stories of artists who fall and cannot create for years. A terrifying thought.
I think a lot of it is that I just have so little time for my brain to rest and let thoughts unspool for hours. I have so little time for not-doing, and my creativity seems to suffer as a result.
I’ve started carving out a scant hour to hour-and-a-half on Saturday and Sunday nights. When I tell the kids that I’m “going to the gym” and then drive to the water to sit and stare, with the window down, listening to the gulls and the waves and the rocks slung against the driftwood. I like to think it’s helping. After all, I’m writing here tonight. A start. Perhaps a few months of this might mean something.
There’s also the potential for a week, in early June when the kids may visit their other parent. A rare occurrence these days. And I hate how much I seem to need that solo time. I miss them, intensely. And also, the time alone brings me back to life. And gives me a chance to catch my breath. To find a sliver of the me that is missing again.
I need to just keep trying. Keep writing. Keep painting.
Even if it’s all nothing more than beach debris, a churned-up wash of broken glass and trash.
pine sap & paper 