you really don't have to
Here is the thing. It’s hard to sit with what is.
It’s hard to sit intent on receiving what this moment has for you, especially when there isn’t much going on from your point of view. It’s hard to show up to your creative practice when there are so many other things you could be doing, when you have so many ideas and no idea where to begin at the same time. It’s hard to pick up where you left off, and hard to start from scratch. It’s hard to sit in the dark of now and not know what it’ll take to be here fully or where it’ll leave you.
It’s hard to sit with what is because you don’t have to.
You don’t have to conquer these yawns, take to the page, and leave it all there. You don’t have to soften into any stillness or lay it all bare. You don’t have to language your grief or find wisdom in your experiences. You could just let your foggy eyes spirit you away. The clouds are thick enough now to reset the day, if you’d like. Hear the wind outside, that storm howling? Could be just the permission you need to call it a night.
You don’t have sit by the window as quiet as the cathedral across the street. You can contemplate thunder and unstruck sounds from another place. You could pick up the phone and scroll your way down some rabbit hole of gossip, drama, or deep lore. You don’t have to sit in the gradient of silence waiting for something to say—for your story to tell itself in the rain. You could read what others are writing. Pick up a book. See what all the heavy hitters are putting out. Tease out some theme or motif to make your work more viral. Call it comparing notes if that feels more justifiable. You don’t have to honor the hour or the toll it takes like the church bells do, and you don’t have to wait for some poem to spring out of you. You could bear witness elsewhere, wait for lightning to strike in other ways. Do something that feels more proactive in the meantime, anything else to let the record show you moved the needle forward.
But you’ve given into enough menial tasks and distractions to see lightning has a funny habit of striking the moment you look away. You’ve played this game before, and you know those other things aren’t going anywhere—this moment is. And its music is reserved for those who dare to listen.
So this is what we do. Honor the day and the hour because it is hard to make time and have it too. We show up to our work because there are so many distractions, they’re everywhere. But true inspiration is a shy creature, she’s rare. I know it’s hard to sit in the tension of her silence, taking note of the glistening dew on the monstera leaves beside you, knowing nothing may come of such an offering, sacrifice, or little trying at art or poetry. But these little instances, events so small it could be said they didn’t even happen, they are jewels. And whether it is a muse, angel, or God that governs any given moment, it can only offer us what we give ourselves the chance to receive. We show up to our work because you can’t task magic, but you can make sure you’re there when it happens.
So we show up to our work. We show up to our work because the canvas is blank and anything can happen between you and that vast inner landscape. Because the page is naked and not knowing where the tension ends is what keeps the words coming and us going. Because creativity is an erotic force, and being here fully, firm in what is fragile, knowing clearly it is fleeting just might be what it’s all about.
I know it’s hard to sit with what is. No one can even tell you what that means. I know it’s hard to get back in touch with your hands after your mind wanders into the past or the future, some other dream or delusion. I know it’s hard to return back to your breath after burnout or distraction, and I know it feels like there is no point of creating when what your soul longs to make is art that isn’t easy, accessible, or all that relatable. But you have to know this little audacity makes a world of difference between where a work starts and when the work’s finished.
Being present, after all, is just another way of making love, and there will always be some other way to waste our time. But never again these conditions, this thunderstorm and the loud flight above. Never again this turbulence, and never again what we could learn returning to stillness from it.
And when you sit with the part of yourself that wants to end before you begin. Sit with the part of yourself that wants to get things over with. When you sit with the process, and ease into what is, you realize there’s no need for a point or objective where the magic happens. You find what takes us away doesn’t define us, it’s what we return with that matters.
Reflect
What is something you don’t have to do and still make the time to do?
What has been a great source of inspiration for you lately?