Creativity is like a well, and it can run dry.
Filling the Well
One of the hardest things about what I do is separating work from life. As both an entrepreneur and an author, my work is all-consuming. My business office is in my home, as is my writing studio, which means I can sit and work until midnight if I want. But I can also sit and work until midnight! because I can’t pull myself away.
To me, the whole idea of a stay-cation is a nightmare. There’s no way I can close my office door and not go in for a week. So going away for vacations is mandatory. Otherwise, I’ll never take a break.
As my husband and I prepare for a week in our favorite summer spot in Maine, I’m trying to come to terms with the concept of “vacating”. Vacation and vacate come from the same Latin stem, vacare, meaning “to be empty, free, or at leisure.” But there’s also a bit of guilt for me in the word’s Proto-Indo-European root which means "to leave, abandon, give out." I am a writer. To abandon my work is absolutely unacceptable. I interpret “to give out” as running out of steam, breaking down, falling or failing from sheer exhaustion.
Sometimes, even with work that we love, that happens. Creativity is like a well, and it can run dry.
As artists, we must find discipline in both our inner and outer lives. It’s serving the inner life that is the hardest thing for me. I’m obsessive about working, about creating, about producing, about self-discipline itself. That’s probably why I feel guilty when I do take a break. I thought it was just me, but I discovered that there’s a term for it: “stresslaxing!”
Still, I force myself to take moments of pause from my chronic work/life imbalance. If all I do all day is sit at the computer and endlessly type, I’m not fully living. What will I have experienced that is worthy of writing about?
I look forward to hiking and biking with my husband. And to spending time doing other creative things that I love: photography, knitting, drawing. Even when I take a break, I’m being creative; I’m just using other, neglected muscles of my creative body.
But creativity should not be equated solely with achievement. Writing 1000 words in my new novel or publishing an essay are the results of creativity, not the source.
To find the source of our creativity, we must fill the well. We must feed the inner life that is starving for richness. We must have experiences, observations, feelings, and thoughts to draw from, and give ourselves time to digest and assimilate before we can give birth to something new.
That’s what I need right now, so I’m going on vacation; and I’m going to try to truly relax.
But, yes, I will be taking my laptop with me.
Gardening for and against Nature
Another of my creative non-writing endeavors is working in my native plant garden. I’ve been at it for ages, long before the wonderful essays by Margaret Roach in The New York Times. Even before I met my writing student, friend, and landscape architect Carolle Huber, who has been educating people in the practice of sustainable landscaping and suburban ecology here in New Jersey for many years.
The principle is that we should plant our gardens to support the natural ecosystem and ensure that there’s plenty of food and shelter for those species that are struggling with human encroachment and habitat loss. So over the seasons, I’ve encouraged “wild” plants to grow. At the moment, my beds are an unruly mass of black-eyed susan, phlox, fading blazing star, and not-yet-blooming snakeroot, goldenrod, and aster.
The problem is that, when planting species that animals like to eat, animals actually come into your garden and eat them! I’ve lost more than a few blooms to the countless rabbits and groundhogs, meanwhile inviting birds of all sorts, luring them with tasty black oil sunflower seeds. But then come the squirrels, who are impossible to outsmart. And the pigeons, who have roosted in our gutters. I’ve struggled against the ravaging deer, while thrilling at the foxes passing through—once when I was sitting in the garden reading! Why do I welcome some visitors and not others, when clearly I have set the table for them with an enticing garden feast? I get particularly annoyed with the deer who don’t even flinch when I come out to chase them from the very last uneaten lily buds.
Despite my ambivalence, my wild visitors gift me with their presence. A baby squirrel once sat on my foot, and chipmunks ate out of my hand. I watched a sparrow nestling grow up in my wood pile; and so many robins have fledged in my shrubs. And twice, including just this week, mama deer have left their does in my back garden. Clearly they know that, though I don’t want them eating everything, I’ve also tried to give them a safe place where they are welcome to nest for the night.
Empty-Nesting
For anyone heading toward or away from college drop-off , check out my essay in NEWSWEEK, Empty Nest Syndrome Had an Unexpected Impact on My Marriage
I wrote it last summer, and am happy to report that my husband and I are doing just fine in our “empty-nest” state. (In fact, our eldest graduated in May, so for a few months this summer, our household was back to “normal.”)
Note that the original title was "Who Are You Again? Empty-Nesting Means Rediscovering Your Spouse and Yourself.” I liked my title better, but who am I to question Newsweek’s SEO expertise? For anyone who plans to publish, don’t get too attached to your title. I’ve had many articles and even novels retitled, sometimes without my approval! (Not the novels, thank goodness! But the articles.)
Creative Writing Prompt: Vacating for just a Moment
Yes, you guessed it!. Here’s that classic writing prompt from elementary school: “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.” But this time, don’t just write about what you did. Pick a singular, simple, unimportant moment that somehow distills the essence of what vacation means to you.
I can think of my own moment—one that I’ve revisited nearly every time we go to Maine and look forward to doing again soon. There’s a beach with no name (at least not one that I’ll tell you!) and no concession stand and not even any parking. You have to know where it is and walk at least half a mile to get there. Then climb over the dunes past beach plums at peak ripeness, descending onto a nearly empty beach just before sunset. There, one or two families are right near the entrance, packing up umbrellas and coolers. Farther down the sand, an older couple walks through the gentle, low-tide surf, their figures veiled by a pale mist. We head in the other direction, toward the inlet that connects the tide to the salt marsh. Seagulls screech overhead and piping plovers scurry and skim low above the water to stay just beyond our footsteps’ range. We pass a woman in a straw sunhat. She kneels and digs, a metal pot at her side filled with eels she’s harvested from deep beneath the sand.
I could go on, but I hope you’ve got the idea. Nothing particular happens on that beach, and yet to me, that moment is summer and vacation. And that’s the point. Like the concept of vacare, I am empty, at leisure, and free.
Expect a special edition newsletter in early September with an update about AKMARAL. Thank you, everyone, for your support. And to my paid subscribers, you are ANGELS!
Forthcoming by Judith Lindbergh
AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior on the ancient Asian steppes must make peace with making war - May 2024 from Regal House Publishing
“Akmaral delves deep into female power and confronts complex issues about womanhood, motherhood, and the sacrifices women make to protect those they love: issues as powerful today as they were in ancient times. If you love Madeline Miller’s Circe, you must read Akmaral. Lindbergh delivers a breath-taking story filled with vivid characters, haunted landscapes, powerful battle scenes, and a love story you will not soon forget.”
—Laurie Lico Albanese, award-winning author of Hester
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