Good morning, everyone,
I’ve been traveling nonstop for 3 1/2 weeks – back and forth across the country by plane, and up and down the city-slicked East Coast and over the farm-bestrewed Appalachians by car. I’ve been citified and countrified. I’ve been noise-crowded and quiet-becalmed. I’ve eaten dinner alone in a jammed NY restaurant, and I’ve stopped at my favorite grass airstrip off I 64 and watched a solitary hawk thermal above sleeping metal airbirds. I’ve contemplated the shifting priorities and needs of my own life, frustrated at how difficult it often is to blend harmoniously my creative desires with the needs of others in my life.
We are each of us different creative selves. To pretend that what one painter, one writer, one sculptor…one person…needs should be the same as what any other such person needs is called denial. While some creative souls are brilliant at creating in public, others need solitude and quiet.
Such a one am I. And increasingly do I also need contact with nature and things to which nothing technological is attached. While I love the MacBook Pro on which I type at this moment – and I do consider it a work of art in it’s own way – my creative self is born when my technology is turned off, when I watch hawks kettle, bees swarm, a caterpillar eat a kale leaf, a winter bird land on the iced-over birdbath and determinedly chip through with its beak to the sliver of water underneath.
I share this article about writer Jill McCorkle’s seemingly ideal country writer life with a bit of hesitation. Not many of us have this. But it shouldn’t matter. What’s important is her exploration of her life, her willingness to change and evolve, the continual surprise of the unknown, and, of course, that she found a way to return to her creative self in a new skin. Like the seasons, our interior soul selves shift constantly. But do we listen when they talk to us? Or are we on automatic pilot, doing today what we did yesterday, next week what we did last year, hanging onto the past instead of evolving into the unknown?
I keep returning to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and the impact it has had on me throughout my life. Whenever I forget its basic lesson – that having a bit of money and a room (not a palatial estate) in which to create is essential – it’s easy to get off track. As McCorkle says of her own writing room,
“I like it because it is one of the places where you can really feel the years.”
These days I read what I consider to be a lot of nonsense online about how one should be able to write and/or create anywhere. Really? Who said so? And, what?, every painter and sculptor and pot thrower should now be doing so in public? Now that the Internet has taken over everyone’s lives all artists’ studios should be abandonned? The world of creativity is, what? public? simply because the Internet is public? Rubbish.
If you are a creative person, don’t listen to what anyone says about how you should be doing it.
Bravo to the artist who can create in public surrounded by chaos.
Bravo to the artist who chooses solitude.
Hallelujah to a cast of hawks that kettle ensemble.
And Amen to the bird that flies free by itself.
Happy April. Maybe Spring will finally arrive.
Have a lovely day.
Giselle
#writers #writerslife #writing
April 4, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Your writing is far more persuasive and engaging than the article in your link. Always a pleasure to read what flows from your mind, Giselle.
April 4, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Hi, Rajini Rao…you are sweet and have always been supportive of me. Thank you. I know you to be a bit of a nature lover yourself. I so hope we have a Spring/Summer where the bugs don’t kill everything again. Remember? And all over Virginia there are those big shield-shaped Japanese stink beetles. I swear that I could be in a sterilized “safe” room, with no way in and no way out, all white and pristine, and I would turn around and there one would be. Upside down. On the ceiling. Just hanging out. Good grief.
April 4, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Ditto Rajini Rao, ditto.
April 4, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Giselle Minoli as is always the case your posts are so insightful and filled with the beuaty of the written word as to make us realize how wonderful life is in all of its aspects – thank you for sharing and for helping keep what is important in proper perspective.
April 4, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Hi dawn ahukanna and stuart richman I keep thinking there is this thing called balance, and yesterday on another long interstate drive I became obsessed by trying to move the steering wheel as little as possible to keep it on the straight and narrow. I mean, my car is really well tuned but even so it’s impossible, right? I mean you have to keep tweaking it. And if you’re doing stomach crunches on a stability ball, you have to keep rocking slightly on your feet to keep everything centered. This notion that I would like to have of finding balance, oh woe is me but you arrive there and then it’s gone and you have to find it all over again. It’s either a joke…or it’s cruel. Or both!
April 4, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Good morning Giselle Minoli. All I can say today is “preach it!” I hope your travels were pleasant and that you can get some rest now that you’re home.
April 4, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Giselle Minoli as a Libra and as a Taoist i am always concerned with keeping my life in balance whenever possible – i am not always successful however.
April 4, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Matthew Graybosch you are awesome. I know you do it your way and Yep it’s all about the flow state. In the Zone. Iron Maiden style (sometimes)!
Hi Dee Solberg that made me laugh. When I was doing my driving thing yesterday I counted so many churches I lost count. It is so weird to be driving in that gorgeous country and see so many churches constantly going up by the side of the highway. I wonder, Why on Earth by the side of the highway? Do people suddenly get struck, while driving, with the need to talk to God? I’m not at all being disrespectful I really am serious? I mean in NYC of course there are churches everywhere. But it is so odd to see the countryside, right next to a main highway becoming dotted with them. So…preaching it, testifying…maybe it’s all rubbed off on me!
April 4, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Giselle Minoli on my home Caribbean island of St.Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands there are for a population of about 45000 people over 300 churches of every possible denomination including a Bahai temple, most right next to the road, and almost all painted yellow for some odd reason – the local joke to tourists when giving driving directions is turn left at the yellow painted church LOL
April 4, 2013 at 1:49 pm
stuart richman it has been 30 years since I’ve been to St. Croix, snorkeling. It would be interesting to go back again. I have no memory at all of the temples. But how weird that you reminded me of my mother’s fascinatio with B’Hai (as she wrote it in her letters)!
April 4, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Heh, glad you got a giggle. As for my statement, it was much longer before, mumbling about Van Gogh and others who were told they were doing it wrong…
As for the number of churches, in one of the small towns I lived in pop. 325, my dad was preacher of the UCC church. In addition, there was a Catholic, Lutheran, 2 Methodist churches, a Presbyterian, a Mormon, and an AOG.
April 4, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Dee Solberg did you comment get vanished into the Google+ Vortex? Happens to me all the time. This continual convo about artists and how they should do it and that artistic issue belongs to the Universe not the creator of the art (Yes, last night was that post), and that artists don’t own anything they create or have a right to charge for it (Yes indeedy)….seriously sometimes I think the Internet is just wiping out people’s connection to life and history and the trajectory of absolutely everything and replacing it all with pulp. Pulp.
Your Dad was a preacher? I’m fascinated. We were married by a Unitarian Universality woman priest. Brilliant woman. Just brilliant.
April 4, 2013 at 2:05 pm
No, I just figured it was a TLDR type post Giselle Minoli. I have a soap box about folks who try to tell folks they are wrong for creating in the way they do. I believe it is an intimate relationship between creativity and each artist in what ever medium they choose. No one should be allowed to intrude upon that intimacy.
Yes, Dad was a preacher…but while he is brilliant…he is also quite the criminal.
April 4, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Really Dee Solberg? Now that would be a post/essay I would like to read – a daughter’s take on her preacher criminal father…
April 4, 2013 at 2:16 pm
Heh, Let’s just say there was a reason I have moved more times than I am old Giselle Minoli…and I actually moved less when I joined the military than when I lived at home. He was always just one step ahead of people who were after him. What I remember most was he always seemed so condescending as though he were above us mere mortals and should be allowed whatever he wished. Oh and that he was so brilliant he couldn’t possibly ever be bested. He never did pay for his crimes. By the time his deeds came to light, the statute of limitations were past, and only their word against his remained.
April 4, 2013 at 2:17 pm
I’ll write you the story some day.
April 4, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Dee Solberg this is a story you should write, not for me, but for publication everywhere. It sort of counterpoint to the Gotti daughter’s love affair with her father, who provided her with all that money by being a murderer and criminal. Have you ever considered it? I would understand if you don’t want to go there but I have an instinct you would find a fascinated audience for it.
April 4, 2013 at 2:27 pm
I’ll think about it Giselle Minoli. If it were only him that would face fallout, it would be a no brainer. I am just worried about everyone else. I’ll write on it, and keep thinking about whether it should be published or not.
April 4, 2013 at 2:28 pm
There might be a way to do it that is about your coming to terms with who your father is, having nothing to do at all with anyone else. I think that is what people would be interested in. Or…I should say, that is what I find interesting…
April 4, 2013 at 2:45 pm
You are quite wonderful Giselle Minoli
I always wait eagerly for your writings.
April 4, 2013 at 2:58 pm
That’s very supportive of you Jack C Crawford but in this increasingly competitive G+ world my own posts are coming ever more slowly. It’s my stance against the tyranny of quantity quantity quantity!
April 4, 2013 at 3:05 pm
I don’t think it’s true that people don’t care Matthew Graybosch. I think that people are just tremendously time-stressed. Speaking personally I just toss things out into the Cosmos from time-to-time and whatever radio signals I get back I’m delighted by. I had a sobering experience at the memorial service of a dear friend two weeks ago, which I’m in the middle of writing about – at a huge gathering of a significant number of artists, writers, poets not a shred or mention or discussion of technology. I could have stayed disconnected for months and honestly don’t think I would have missed it.
Honestly Matthew Graybosch I’m so much more interested in people and conversation. If I could empty all of the information in my brain out during lunchtime I would do it. I am overprocessed with information information information.
April 4, 2013 at 3:05 pm
Giselle Minoli to get back to the original statements of your post – when i was doing my lighting designs i had to be in a quiet place – granted i did do some of my best work on cocktail napkins in airport bars but for the most part i preferred a quiet room to create in – same when i used to do sculpture.
April 4, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Well, stuart richman I totally agree. There is a huge person (in terms of followers) on G+ who believes and says publicly that if you can’t write anywhere you’re not a writer. I’m not going to say who it is because I rather respect their own accomplishments but I totally disagree with this philosophy. I would claim that if people created within more solitude there would be less of an assault of the trivial.
April 4, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Giselle Minoli since i am not a writer, though i am in the prolonged process of attempting to write my autobiography i will not comment on what it takes to be a writer but i agree with you totally – but aside from being creative in any endeavor i find that i need quiet just to stay balanced as a caring person.
April 4, 2013 at 7:28 pm
stuart richman one day one isn’t a writer, and then, suddenly, inexplicably – for no reason perhaps other than that one sets pen to paper or fingers to keyboard in a focused, determined, intent and committed manner – the next day one is. This happens more than you can imagine. 😉
April 4, 2013 at 7:45 pm
But this is the hallmark of a writer Matthew Graybosch, having a BS detector…not having been anointed by the Pope or anyone as actually being a writer. That is fairly useless.
April 4, 2013 at 8:00 pm
I always smile when I learn things about you Matthew Graybosch. I truth is that I know you do other things with your life, but to me they are incidental to being a writer. More proof of the difference between the verbs “to Be” and “to Do.” What we do is not necessarily Who We Be.
April 4, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Well, that’s why I was careful to write “to me…” because I knew you might feel differently. 😉
April 4, 2013 at 9:02 pm
He haz da layerz…
sorry…I had to.
slaps hand
April 4, 2013 at 9:48 pm
Check out this vid about dynamics between balance, equilibrium and chaos –
.
April 4, 2013 at 10:09 pm
Yes, sorry Matthew Graybosch. Couldn’t be helped. Gremlins took over. What I truly meant is that you are a wonderfully rich and multifaceted person. But you see how it came out? I’m telling you…possession.
April 5, 2013 at 12:28 pm
First of all, how pathetic is it that I didn’t see the Shrek movies? I’m a total cave woman about some popular culture stuff, but don’t tell anyone.
Now Here This: Please watch the STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL video that dawn ahukanna mentioned above (here’s the link again:
) because it’s a brain, soul and spirit turn on.
And Matthew Graybosch I think it has everything to do with writing, because I think writing is a balance between plot, character, subtextual meaning, language, timing, relationships…all that getting from A-Z in an interesting way without the whole thing becoming encumbered by one aspect of the book or not.
Watch the video and tell me what you think.
April 5, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Giselle Minoli OMG what an amazing video Giselle. Would you please share it public? I’ll reshare. Amazing.
April 5, 2013 at 9:01 pm
I’m doing just that Jack C Crawford for tomorrow morning’s post!
April 5, 2013 at 10:52 pm
<3
April 6, 2013 at 8:29 am
Giselle Minoli it happens rarely but i am sure you know the feeling: you suddenly read something & you feel you could have written it yourself: voila! suddenly, it is your own voice speaking.
“Like the seasons, our interior soul selves shift constantly.” Indeed! And mysteriously. I tend to observe mine as I observe the seasons: not too analytically but with the attentiveness of a farmer.
“Such a one am I”, too. Thanks for sharing.
April 14, 2013 at 12:32 am
Great piece, Giselle Minoli ! Love the term the you used in the thread…time stressed. I spend a lot of time in the public eye which makes me crave the solitude of the forest where I live. It’s difficult to maintain the balance between public and private especially for artists and creative folk. But when we toss the cyberworld into the mix, it throws things into a different realm. Always like to hear your thoughts. Take care, Giselle.