I recently caught the jewelry bug (again). All
I want to do is make jewelry. My hands, in some deep, instinctual way, want to
be beading, cutting chain, making dangles. The movement is calming and
meditative. I almost don’t even mind when I have to take a necklace apart
because that just means I’ll get to make it all over again.
But jewelry time is cutting into my writing time. And I have all these guilty feelings around that, like I’ve tried to take on the name of “writer,” and I’m not doing it right. I’m not setting my clock for a specific writing time every day and turning out a certain number of pages a week. In some ways, I feel like I’m letting my “writer self” down.
And yet, I feel so much peace when I’m making jewelry, like my hands are taking some of the burden of movement that my mind usually carries.
Sometimes I think all my writing – all my posts and newsletters about creativity and productivity – say the same thing:
Figure out what feeds you.
Not what you wish would feed you, what you think feeds other people, what you think should feed you.
Figure out what really feeds you. Today. And then do that.
Just as feeding ourselves with healthy food every week with Personal Chef To Go is important, feeding ourselves in other ways is just as important.
A friend told me once that the Universe keeps giving you the same lesson until you learn it.
And I guess in my case that feels true. I have the same struggles over and over again on this creative journey. I write little letters to myself, and I call them blog posts. But they’re for me, really. So I can remind myself again and again…and yet again that no one has the monopoly on a creative life. Part of living a creative life is creating a creative life. They don’t come in readymade kits.
Today creating jewelry feeds me. But you can ask me again tomorrow.
It might be something different.
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