Read this when you're facing creative obstacle after creative obstacle
Don't push the river!
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Hi beautiful people,
Here is a letter for when you are in the middle of taking a leap, specifically in terms of being visible and taking up space. This is a Gentle Musings on creative vulnerability and staying with it, with compassion.
If you’ve ever stepped out of your comfort zone to practice something similar—maybe it was through standing in front of a group for a presentation, facilitating, giving a toast, getting on video, presenting your perspective in a conversation even when it made you feel nervous or vulnerable, reading your work out loud, sharing and expressing yourself in any which way—or if one of these leaps has been calling to you for a while, this one is for you.
And please, let me know what landed! My responses are slow these days but I love hearing from you.
Here we go…
On a Monday in late September 2020, I sat down to film the introduction video for my Patreon page (rest in peace) after attempting to film it in August. This is a musing on the experience in order to share what the process of showing up has looked like this season. This, of course, is a snapshot that I am sharing because hurdles in the adventure of creativity never fail to feel individual, and yet they are almost always a collectively shared experience. Creativity is a lot like loneliness in this way, and there is a certain pierce of loneliness when trying to overcome the inevitable barriers of creative expression. I'll write about loneliness and creativity more soon, but for now, here are today's Gentle Musings:
Quick backtrack to August: I prepared the night before and tried filming in the early morning in our courtyard—it was my first time having a patio space and I figured the fresh air and nature would calm the bubbling anxiety.
A few minutes into filming, there was a clamor of construction. Trying to stay patient, I recorded when there was a pause in their work. I thought, this is a test of my patience, but honey I’ve studied. At about fifteen minutes in, stumbling on my words, getting tripped up and doubting about even having a Patreon page, jackhammers enter the scene. I took some deep breaths and waited, only until a helicopter started flying overhead… for some reason *ahem inflated police budget* there are constant non-medical helicopters in the city.
So, I move the filming set-up inside into my apartment, a teeny studio without the greatest backgrounds. It’s beautiful and homey, but every background setting I could find was busy, fine for a casual video but not the introduction to a Patreon page. The area I could film in was also contingent on the sunlight from the window, so I settled on a space that showed my kitchen sink in the background and thought, whatever, this is an at-home production, this is what is happening… can you tell I was deflated at this point?
While filming clunky takes, my cat jumped on the counter, highlighting how much I absolutely, under any circumstances, do not want a kitchen sink in the background. Many camera pivots and shots gone awry, and I was a puddle of frustration and disappointment. My script was memorized at this point and came out dry and uninspired.
Cut to Monday well over a month later — a new day to try again. As I went to pull up the script, it was nowhere to be found. My nerves started to build that this would be another disappointing attempt at stepping outside of my comfort zone. But honey, I’ve studied. If anyone is creatively stubborn, it’s me.
After the script was quickly re-written, my freaking tripod broke.
