A Toast to Artists

I’m writing from my hotel room now. My husband’s stuff is all over the place, as is he. Eating, chewing, talking, giving me unsolicited advice, and other such habits that he is of course entitled to, though they kill my creative spark. He just commented that I could play my itunes from the computer as I type. No shit!

Meanwhile, his belt sits in view, on the side table next to the couch in my room, balancing a plastic knife that he used yesterday to, almost unsuccessfully, cut through a plastic wrapper. He is getting ready to go to the gym, and I breathe a sigh of relief, even as his shoes look up at me from their place on the middle of the floor in the “living room” of our suite. One is facing upright, the other is on its side pointing away from its twin. It all has the effect of human fingernails scrapping the surface of a blackboard.

Earlier this week I mentioned to a friend my preference for things to be in their place in order for the creative spark to flow: For the practical details to be tended to before the visioning can begin. This is not procrastination for me; rather, it is like a necessary container. In my life, the alchemy of creation needs its clean, clutter-free, and organized vessel.

I am reading a book called Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go. The process of creativity, whether we are writing a blog, designing a home, or painting a picture, is a dance of ritual and structure with that of trust, waiting, and letting go. As I began to write this morning, my intention was to write something else. The sound of my husband’s salvia swishing around his mouth before being swallowed down his esophagus led me somewhere else. Rather than drown in the distraction of it all, I went with it. I spaced down a few lines from the two sentences of the intended blog entry and began a new one.

Start with the now.

My now was distraction and irritation and crawling skin. Even so, as I reread the first paragraph of what I wrote, it brings me delight. I enjoyed describing the crawling skin. And although complaining about my husband, I’m really poking fun at myself. Ironically, I’m illuminating that part of myself that has a difficult time letting go; the part that wishes conditions to be just right—meaning exactly the way I want them—before I can sit down and put words on page.

I will eventually get up and put things in their place. This, too, brings me delight. For now, though, I can take pleasure in having experienced a moment of spiritual teaching: If we fight what is now, we experience “writer’s block,” in art and in life; if we instead embrace the now and trust its wisdom, it will lead us toward an unknown, yet equally satisfying or necessary, next now. And we can never view the whole picture from where we sit. (As an aside, the Academy Award nominated Slumdog Millionaire portrays this latter mentioned aspect of spiritual teaching with humor, compassion, and inspiration.)

Here’s to being with what life brings us. To waiting. To trusting. To loosening up the hold on our expectations and identities. Here’s to being artists.