Are You Listening?

Thoughts on creativity and making room for the Muse

It's a mild summer day and I walk through mountain grass along the edge of the river. A pair of bald eagles are riding the thermals above me and wild rose is blooming by the water. Higher up on the dry plateau, Plains Pricklypear is showing off vibrant yellow blooms. An electric green dragonfly lands on my arm, his giant eyes a marvel and entirely alien. I exhale and allow myself to fully take in the slice of earth around me – right here, right now.

I left my phone in the car and I am glad and also wondering where to put all the information that is gathering in my head. I find myself wanting to list the snakes I've seen today, to capture the shades of pink that exist in a single rose, the way the breeze smells of Sweetgrass and damp soil. Instead, I keep walking and hold these precious observations in the soft basket of my mind.

I am writing for another day.

If you are a writer also, or an artist of any kind, or really just someone who listens, you are likely familiar with this feeling, too. The feeling where beauty finds you and you are consumed with an equal urge to both preserve and fully live the moment in front of you.

I remember when I was maybe nine years old and I began to keep a journal. Most days I would come home from school and lay on the floor with all my pens and pencils around me on the green rug. I would stare at the blank page overcome with the urge to write – something, anything – simply to feel the tug and glide of my favorite gel pens against the paper. I would write my name, my sister's name, my address, the name of my school, lists of dreams, books I loved, boys I liked. I would sometimes copy entire pages from other books just to feel the sensation of writing.

Over the years that spanned then and now, this love of writing never left me. It dimmed at times and flourished at others, but it was ever present. As I got older the world began to ask how I was going to fend for myself, how I was going to make my mark, and ideas like copywriting and and guest blogging, building websites and selling other peoples products over took my mind.

I worked myself into such a hole trying to decide what other people would find valuable that I forgot what I find valuable. I forgot that writing is not just websites and blog posts, but that it is actually sitting quietly in the backyard watching robins pull worms out of the wet grass, I forgot that it is going on long walks and loosing track of time so entirely engrossed in my own world, I forgot that writing is stopping throughout the day to type things feverishly in my notes app because inspiration doesn't care if you are in the middle of a conversation or driving down the highway, it only cares that you are listening.

I decided to divorce money from creativity, to give them both some room to breathe, at least for right now. And do you know what happened? I joined a writers group, I meet with friends to write at coffee shops, I read what I write out loud in my kitchen, and I have never produced more writing, ever. The flood gates opened and now every walk is half walk half write, every page of every book is kindling for creative fire, and suddenly I don't mind what other people think or what they would find valuable because I remember why I fell in love with language in the first place and that is because of the way it makes me feel.

So for now? My creativity walks with me in the morning light, sits with me in bed late at night, and we talk – about everything. I don’t ask her to perform, and our relationship continues to grow, softly, as if by candlelight.

In my experience, the struggling artist is the one who makes art based on what she thinks others want to see, not based on what she feels. Inspiration is our nature, it’s the way God speaks to us, the way birds sing and chimes ring in the wind. After all, the root of the word is to breathe, to breathe into. What is more human than breath?

Someday soon, I trust money will follow my creativity, will beg to go where she goes, and I will be more than grateful. But for the time being, I will create for creation’s sake, never forget the breath inside me that guides the deep waters of who I am, and continue to hope to kindness that the thoughts and ideas now living outside of me will be greeted by gentle hands and tender hearts.

Someone told me the other day that our job as writers is simply to listen closely. I think our job as humans is to do the same.

Are you listening?