Creation in the Time of Constant Sharing

keeping some art for myself, for now

It is quiet around here today. The parked cars have a good dusting of snow; the green grass is now a gradient-looking hybrid of summer x winter—a true love story. My candle is lit, I have eaten my morning oatmeal, and the birds are far away. Skis would be of no use in the valley today, but the roofs and cars are full of snow deception and I am delightfully deceived.

I think I will go up to the mountain soon and sit there with a stove—any warm liquid in a pot will do—and think about Michigan with its glorious inches of snow and bad weather. I’ll be cold and miserable and I will love it, delightfully deceived.

Recently, I have been trying to sit with thoughts or no thoughts, sated or wild, while whatever sun we get positions itself so perfectly through the window and onto my face, that I am nothing but a small wick. Each morning. After the dark hours. This (newsletter) practice comes easy to me, now. I know what voice to use on these mornings; I know my audience. But other mornings are, after the dark hours pass, barely sculpted. There is a line between being too rigid. If not, I would name my days: applications, submissions, poems, fiction. It doesn’t work like that. You have to wait for lucid dreams, for the wick to burn, for the envisioning of any perfect paragraph to fall even when you think you got it right. And then you have to hide it from the world, the other dimension. For a little while, at least. This is the process of writing. Except for these mornings when I mold the clay and send it out, chipped or not.

And chipped or not is nice. It is so much fun. There is not much overthinking on my part. A sentence is a sentence—dragged or not. I am able to chuck it out the window with a few handfuls of dirt. Let it be, let it grow. Let it be received or not. I don’t care.

Ah, you see, I am writing about the winter storm. The creative block. The deaths that come in the other dimension. The deaths that stay cold and unwritten. What I am saying is that for the internet, I would do it all. For myself? Sometimes I’d rather go up the mountain and die.

We are on a sharp edged hill. There is a platform that exists in which we can find inspiration, learn about community events, and share our work (I am speaking about social media in general)—but at the same time, my mind is so inflamed with information that I’ve resorted to the drastic measures of giving up—often half-way through—anything I write that isn’t “ready” to be shared immediately.

Social media doesn’t offer the art of dreaming, waiting, the accidental meditation, words strung together in a million different ways. We’re in fast culture. We’ve been sped up. Not really by our own doing, but by the people who profit off our own two hands, our own good work. We are in a constant rush to share and our brains are becoming wired for it. What the hell do we do when there’s nothing? When there is silence, that terrifying noise, that open void of time and possibility?

I don’t know. I’ll let you think about it. (Please let me know, too. I want to create in a world full of slow and careful sharing.) And I don’t think this is just a conversation for artists. I think we could all become more full, a little more alive with a few good-natured secrets tucked in our pockets. Some creation just for us.