Contemplations on Creativity

The January sky fades from a deep blue to a pale orange as the sun sets out of my window. It’s cold. I’ve been inside alone all day. I’m listening to Sharon Van Etten’s new album, Remind Me Again Tomorrow. It’s dark and menacing at times, slow and building, layered and deep with emotion. It’s getting steadily darker outside.

I'm contemplating some things in the wake of the poet Mary Oliver's death, mainly the quote:

"The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time."

This is perhaps my greatest fear: to live with that kind of regret. 

I often feel like a fish that's been caught and is flopping around on the dock, dying to get back into the water to breathe and live again. I have these thoughts swirling around in my head all day, but I have a boring job, floors to vacuum, dishes to put away, and I feel suffocated, paralyzed.

But then I look outside my window and I feel this urge to try to describe what I see. As Willa Cather wrote:

"Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see."

I need to open my eyes more. I need to sit down here and write more. I need to feel the words that are inside, churning, burning to come out. I need to find the “sheer mad joy” that Jack Kerouac wrote about.

“Keep it kickwriting at all costs too, that is, write only what kicks you and keeps you overtime awake from sheer mad joy.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

I will not suffocate. I am not paralyzed. I will not grow old with regrets.

It’s getting darker and darker now. But I’m starting to see some light.