Simple Truths

"Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we're learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration -- it is how we fold our experiences into our being. Over the course of my career, the question I've been asked more than any other is, "How do I take what I'm learning about myself and actually change how I'm living?"...after lots of research and interviewing hundreds of creatives, I've come to believe that creativity is the mechanism that allows learning to seep into our being and become practice."                                                                          ~Brene Brown

Simple truth: When I feel stressed or overwhelmed in my everyday life, I seek solitude and calm in my creative life.

For the last two weeks, I have been feeling a little overwhelmed. My kitchen has been in chaos. The choices for countertops and backsplash have gone so smoothly, but we are faltering in our flooring and lighting selections. Lighting is difficult to envision. Certain fixtures look tempting when hanging amongst hundreds of others in the store, but by itself in my unfinished kitchen, held up by my husband's hand above the peninsula, I am less sure if that is THE right one. There has been plenty of buying and returning in the last couple of weeks.

Simple truth: Because of this sense of feeling overwhelmed, I have been unable to do any filming for the past two weeks. The films I make require planning and storyboarding. This is something that comes fairly easily when my mind isn't overloaded with utilitarian decisions.

Simple Truth: Instead of filmmaking, it has been easier to grab my camera, jump in the car and go on a photo adventure. This leaves the planning and shot list to chance and happenstance, instead of placing the burden of more decisions on me.

Simple Truth: If I don't have an idea for this blog space by Thursday, there will be no blog post on Sunday. I work better being early instead of late.

Simple Truth: I am not afraid to try new things until I find something that works. In the spirit of trying something new, for the month of March, I am going to try and find my inspiration spark early in the week.

Sunday afternoon I sat down with my new book, Just Write One Thing Today - 365 Creative Prompts to Inspire You Every Day, flipping through the pages looking for inspiration. A couple caused small stirrings of interest, like: Flavors - Write down five of your favorite drinks, or Old Watch - Describe an old watch that has been covered in cobwebs in a box in the attic. Both of those could have been fun, but just not quite the right one. Finally on Day 280, I found the one that I couldn't stop thinking about: Evergreen Forest - Imagine you are in an evergreen forest. Describe the sights, smells, and sounds of your surroundings.

Monday morning, I loaded my tripod and camera into the car before the eight o'clock hour and set off for the Spruce Loop.

Simple Truth: I am a beach shooter, not a forest shooter. I love negative space. I had to work harder to find it in the tangle of trees.

Simple Truth: If you have made it to the end of this post and all you remember are serene, morning-lit pictures of an evergreen forest, that's alright. I take the photographs to share with you, but I write the words for me. I have taken what was in my head, used my hands, and moved it to my heart.

Do you have an evergreen forest where you could go for a walk this week?

In Other News...

For all my angst, the kitchen is actually coming along well. The countertops are in, and I LOVE them. The tile backsplash is up and I LOVE that too. The cabinets have been "refreshed" and look brand new again. Not bad for thirty year old cabinets. I spent Tuesday and Thursday painting over the Robin's Egg Blue the walls use to be. They are now a very neutral Alabaster. Outlet covers are still in the deciding stage. Flooring has been decided and I will get that ordered this week. The lighting saga continues...

Serendipitous moment at the grocery store this week. My path crossed with another blogging friend who I have never met before. She is @kateterhaar on Instagram. We have been friends for years on FaceBook and Instagram. She is originally from where I live, and happened to be in town for a conference and to visit with her sister. The chances of both of us being in the produce aisle at little past eight on a Friday morning are pretty slim. Meeting Kate felt like talking with an longtime friend.

Happy adventures this week my friends!

Podcasts - A Source of Inspiration

I first truly fell in love with podcasts when our daughter decided to go to a college that was eight hours away, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We have always listened to podcasts on vacations, but then I always had new and interesting things to look at out the window, so I tended to be only half listening.

In the Upper Peninsula after you cross the Mackinac Bridge, you are rewarded for a little while with beautiful winding vistas along US 2, and occasional peeks of Lake Michigan. Once you turn off of US 2 though, and head into the interior of the Upper Peninsula, the only vistas are pin-straight country highways, bordered by pine timber forests on both sides. Usually, one or two of the four trips each year, the view consisted of pin-straight country highways, timber forests and snow which covered everything. About an hour and half into the three hour crossing of the U.P. to get to Marquette, I am fighting with all my might to keep my eyelids open. This is where the podcast has become a life saver, literally, if I happen to be driving. I will scroll through my husband's iPod options for podcasts, of which there are many, and pick something that I know will engage my mind for the next 30 minutes to an hour. My favorites are: This American Life with Ira Glass (I love Ira Glass), Stuff You Should Know with Chuck and Josh (always good for a laugh), or The Moth Story Hour. Occasionally I will try something new, but I always return to my favorites.

Recently, I found myself alone in the car for two days of driving to Pennsylvania to meet my friend Andrea for a week of Autumn photography in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon area. I could have done the trip all in one day, but I decided to split it up for the sake of my back, my legs, and my sanity.

Knowing that I would have a lot of time in the car alone, I begged my daughter to borrow her iPod for the trip. Her's has our whole library of music and podcasts on it, my iPod Nano is a bit more limited. So thankfully she agreed, and we traded iPods.

I had recently discovered Elizabeth Gilbert's new podcast series Magic Lessons, based on her new book, The Big Magic. I had listened to all twelve of them while doing the mundane chores related to housework, but I wanted to really be able to focus on them without the drone of the vacuum cleaner. I was halfway across our state before I pulled out the iPod, having stopped at a rest stop for a rest room break. Excited to get inspired by Liz and her various guests, I scanned through the podcasts, found her's, and pressed play. Much to my disappointment, I found that only the last episode of Magic Lessons had loaded. Thankfully though, it was the episode of her interview with Brene Brown. I listened to that interview twice through, which killed an hour of my remaining four hours of travel time.

Done with the second listening of that episode, I was feeling very inspired and eagerly sought out any other creativity podcasts that might be in the queue. As I sat in the second rest stop parking lot and scrolled through the podcast list, my eye caught one in particular, Lenswork --Photography and the Creative Process by Brooks Jensen. I had subscribed to this podcast over a year ago, but had never listened to a single episode. I am not exactly sure why, but I am a firm believer in that nothing ever happens out of the blue.

I started with the latest episode and worked my way backwards. Since I had a year's worth of material, they kept me going for quite a long time. Each episode is only 5-10 minutes in length. Before I knew it I had listened to more than a dozen episodes. Eventually I had to shut the iPod off for a while, my mind was overflowing with inspiration and ideas; ideas for my work, inspiration for things to photograph, and best of all ideas for blog posts.

As I work through these podcast episodes more slowly, now that I am home again, I am taking notes and jotting down creative ideas. I plan to share things that have caught my attention in upcoming blog posts. I am excited to share my thoughts with you, and I would love to hear your thoughts as I delve into these various topics. Maybe I will finally start that FaceBook page I have always pondered starting for the blog, because I would love to connect more with my readers and get some conversations going.

Resources

Podcasts:
This American Life
Stuff You Should Know
The Moth
Magic Lessons
Lenswork

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon