Creative Dreams Adrift

Bits and pieces of me scattered around the house. Looking for an unlined journal, I located the paginated essay book I bought in 1970… a graduation from “diary” to “journal work.” I fancied myself so very mature at 21. It begins just a couple months before my marriage to Al… and ends with the entry of me writing an unsent letter, informing him of my decision to file for divorce. My writing in some of those last pages is small and tight and painful to see – almost a backhand slant to it. One of the last entries speaks of not being able to “find Linda” in all that was going on. 

And I rummaged through drawers of never-opened art supplies, which have been sitting there waiting for the creative urge to strike me. I thought I would like to take an unlined journal and a few pencils with me on this trip to the clergy retreat. Perhaps I could both write and draw my impressions of the experience, I thought. And what I found included a set of colored pencils by Mongol that I purchased for art class in 1968… and a smaller set I bought a couple years ago. Both seemed “too much of a production” to take with me. I am not sure what it is I am seeking. I don’t want to arrive looking like I think I am an artist… but who am I?

Fabric swatches rolled up and stored in a cupboard that was built to be a wine rack. I had great plans to make the guest room closet into a sewing nook, and I have fabrics I bought with the intention of turning them into clothing. Plans on hold, “a dream deferred.”

There is that in me crying out to create – and each week I create a message for my community and offer it up on Sunday morning. That is most assuredly creating. And somehow I do not recognize it as such. And I write my “daily pages” at least three days a week most weeks – and some of them turn into blogs and Sunday messages, and the notebooks are stored in boxes in the hall closet. And the freezer is full of food waiting to be turned into meals, but it is too hot to spend time in the kitchen. 

Is this that Divine Discontent of which 'they' speak? A house filled primarily with potential or spent energy… not much kinetic happening here, it seems. I am willing to move forward, and I don’t seem to know how. “Do what’s in front of you” – ‘they’ say that is the thing. So the computer is in front of me and here are the thoughts. And I yearn to paint, to cook, to write, to play, to release that within that wants to be expressed… and today does not seem to be the day. Not all essays have a resolution, it seems.