Strength and Beauty

I’m not sure.
I have lost all creative writing energy.

I used to write letters (the snail mail type) to my friends of old. Hilary and I invested in lovely stationary, special pens, ribbons to bind the thick stack of papers, pressed flowers. I used to keep a live letter of sorts between Ali and I that went back and forth in a little journal. We started it before we both were even dating our husbands. It is still floating between us, somewhere.

It could be that it is just summer time. Kind of like knitting, it lays dormant in a basket at the side of your chair. You look at it from time to time, think about how it might be nice to pick it up, but you choose to do something else.

It could be that I am all out of creative energy. I do feel like I am in a time of transition of sorts. I have finally made a clean break from my Evanston family and am starting new friendships up north. Looking for connection, a place to call a church home, a community to send roots down with. This takes creative energy the way a woman in her first trimester is all sucked up dry of physical energy as her inner womb does phenomenal and mysterious things creating a very small human being.

It could be that I am feeling protective of my inner world. There is much rumbling within and I have many thoughts and reflections. I feel unsure where to process some of it though. And the blog might not always be the most appropriate and, most of all, safe place, if you know what I mean.

I’ve also begun to experience this powerful phenomenon since quitting my job at the Kellogg Center. All the projects and large to-do items I have put off and stuffed in the attic of my mind this past year (or even the last few years) have come falling down from the little trap door. I find myself wanting to accomplish, check things off lists, be productive, move forward. I guess this is a good sign in some ways. I have energy, space, time and creative power to do many of them. It’s stuff like organizing my pantry, transplanting flowers and perennials that are just in the wrong place, painting/decorating Audrey’s room, dusting the blades on the ceiling fans, going through the girls clothes and organizing them according to size, sorting the filing cabinets that are stuffed to the gills and getting rid of all those old IV staff meeting notes and such, washing windows that have never been washed in the course of our history (and probably the previous owners history) of living in this house, sew this adorable dress pattern I have, create a meditation room and the list just goes on and on and on until I am swirling in it and just plain overwhelmed.

I am hoping autumn brings on some creative writing juices. I need to make time for it and schedule it like its a play date with a good friend. Instead it’s a writing date at the local St. Arbucks with an old laptop.