In The Flow
As Corinne so beautifully shared last week, we’re using this space to share the things we are feasting on creatively all month long. ‘The art that has us feverishly texting and leaving whispered voice memos at all hours of the night and spilling our coffee on pages first thing in the morning. The creativity of others that is dripping down our chins and through our fingertips.’
I find that 40 years into the human experience, I am still discovering the patterns of my inner systems. The ways I ebb and flow creatively, the input and output rhythm that naturally occurs for me, and what it feels like when I am getting too close to the edge of burnout. It’s funny how, for someone who spends as much time as she possibly can as close to the ground as she possibly can, I am also almost laughably terrible at being grounded within myself. Call it a trauma response, call it being an HSP, call it Depression or Anxiety — I am a woman with many names. Some that help, some that heal, some that wash a gray palette over me like fog drifting through an East Coast harbor town — yet, all serve me well when I know how to channel them.
Hot showers are a channel, all steam and essential oil, eucalyptus stems, and fresh white linens to dry watery skin.
Standing barefoot outside, grass or soil, moss or stone, sunrise or midnight — that is a channel. Planting oneself has a way of rooting us back into nature and back into ourselves.
Hot tea in the afternoon is a channel, particularly this kind, which I recently discovered my Costco carries and subsequently purchased and now have a lifetime supply of.
All creativity is energy. Movement. A flow. A current. A surge of inspiration filling up and pouring out. But rivers can’t flow without a steady stream of water, and we are no different. I’m learning that when I move at such a pace that I am constantly pouring out, giving and rushing, and never slowing down long enough to fill myself back up, I run dry. I stop flowing. I lose touch with myself and my motivation, my passion, my imagination.
We are the ones who channel where and how our energy moves. Every decision we make affects the flow in and through us.
When I find myself stuck, stagnant, and frustrated, I look to the river and imagine myself as water. Music helps with this, standing and swaying, humming along. Putting down our phones and picking up books and flowers and pencils and stories helps, too. Poetry is a channel. So is walking, running, climbing, resting, Marco Poloing, posting, zoning out, making plans, or canceling plans. All of it belongs because only we can know what will fill us up.
This is your body, your home, and you make the rules. (*nods to Taylor’s line in Lover*)
Things that are filling me up lately:
beauty - I have the GenSee eyeshadow in Desert Highway and Pink Champagne and love them both, as well as the lip and cheek sheen in Apple which is also amazing. I love that this brand is clean, doesn’t test on animals, and uses packaging that is plant-based and recyclable.
books - Climate Resilience by Kylie Flanagan, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison
music - this soundtrack and this one too. Also this song OMG
social - Humans of New York’s latest 54-slide feature of the one-year anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and the beginning of the global Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
art - Andrea Soos is one of my favorites. I have two of her prints in my home and am hoping for an original someday.
What’s flowing for you these days?