You're not lacking creativity, you just haven't taken a long enough walk yet

Why doing less might be exactly what your next idea needs

We have just returned home from a weeklong New England excursion celebrating our son’s 2nd birthday. What started on the cliffs of Newport, Rhode Island ended yesterday on a ferry back from the island of Nantucket. It was 8 full days of exploring some of the most beautiful, iconic, historic spots New England has to offer — and somehow entertaining a toddler throughout it all.

It was simultaneously magical and exhausting.

It’s safe to say this little boy has no idea how good he has it. On his tab alone, his birthday week was marked by french fries on every plate, soft serve with rainbow sprinkles fed to him like a baby bird by his grandparents, and insanely overpriced smoothies at tourist hotspots. Though I will tell you, the smoothies — and endless lattes I consumed — were that good and were worth every penny. (cough cough I’m looking at you Lemon Press. ILY)

So yes, he’s now officially crossed the invisible border where we designate his age in years rather than months. Yes, I’m emo about it. But no, you’ll never catch me telling anyone that I now have a “24-month-old.”

His turning two was also a huge marker for me. It’s been two years since I stepped foot in a newsroom. It’s a long time to see change, to evaluate what I’ve done and most glaringly, what I haven’t.

The constant feeling of angst I have in this phase of stay-at-home motherhood is born of the sense that time is slipping through my fingers.

Nap times feel fleeting and short-lived, even though I have a toddler who loves to sleep in his crib in the afternoon.

My to-do list as our designated family administrator and house manager is never ending, even though I now have all the available space and time to focus on it.

My work, which once felt so purposeful, feels lost and far away as I continue to deal with the ripple effects of having worked a decade in a high-functioning, toxic atmosphere.

There are many days where I wonder about my purpose and contribution to the world now, even as I am actively living squarely inside my most important role.

I am raising this beautiful boy and getting ready to welcome and raise another.

Motherhood is full of juxtapositions.

I was recently sitting with one of my dearest friends at dinner and finally said something out loud that I hadn’t even fully expressed to myself.

We were talking about a creative project she’s working on — one that inspires her and makes her feel good in the midst of her “day job.” She was telling me about how she’s given herself a designated time of day that she works on this project, every single day.

She has a set goal. Most days she hits it, while other days she’s sitting with parts of that require space and time and mental effort. But every day she always makes room for the project itself.

I marveled at her. Here is a woman with an incredibly full plate, but every single day she sits and she creates. Why? Because it makes her feel good. Because it’s enjoyable to her.

If you’ve ever had an idea and felt like you couldn’t quite sit down to physically write it, draw it, create the business plan, order the supplies, do the paperwork, etc etc etc…. you know the distinct feeling of frustration that comes with an idea that sits juuuust out of reach.

You know it’s there, you know you’re capable, but for some reason you just can’t seem to start. Or maybe once you sit to begin you can’t quite focus long enough on it because too much else is in the way. You find yourself getting up to load a dishwasher, or you remember those 3 emails you meant to send earlier. Before you know it, the time has slipped away.

I have felt this in droves recently.

One of my all time favorite books on creativity is by Elizabeth Gilbert, titled “Big Magic.” I’ve talked about it numerous times here on my Substack. Gilbert writes not about isolating creativity, but rather coexisting with creativity. She’s a woman who has made a career in writing, but she argues that for most people — your creative passion actually shouldn’t be your day job.

There’s a specific part of the book where Gilbert talks about ideas as their own beings, and how those ideas seek out human hosts. If you’ve ever had the sensation of an idea coming to you randomly — in the shower, while walking the dog, taking out the trash — you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a sense that you got a download of sorts, something that came to you without you sitting down to create it.

Ideas require space.

So as I was sitting there with my friend, listening to her outline her creative rubric for her project, I had a realization and said to her out loud:

I’m so proud of you for giving yourself this space. Watching you makes me realize that I have not given myself any real space at all.

I got home that night and resolved that the next week I would take a look at what I was prioritizing in my few toddler-free hours and restructure. When I looked at my non-domestic load, I realized I was taking on my “logical next step” work (aka content creation — freelance UGC and video work) and prioritizing that above what I really wanted to be doing, which is my writing.

I’ve done it to myself, really. In my classic, eldest millennial daughter kind of way, I took a “career break” after having a baby, only to fill it with little bits of work that weren’t actually lighting me up. All it did was keep me busy, keep me chained to something. And for what? A little bit of cash here and there. What I’m realizing about myself is that I am unable to be still, unable to sit and wait, and unable to allow the next thing to come to me.

As my husband loves to say about my dancing, I don’t let anyone else lead… and that’s true of my own career break. I didn’t actually ever let my brain relax. I have been thinking about what I’m supposed to be doing next this entire time.

The angst of feeling like I don’t earn a paycheck.

The worry about whether my skills will ever translate again.

The feeling that time is slipping away and I’ve not done what I want to do.

So, I promised myself something for our week vacation:

I would take the time. I would sit. I would walk.

I would allow myself to just think creatively about what I actually want to do.

If you’ve ever wanted an idea to come to you, I promise: take a quiet walk. No podcast, no meditation, no music. Just listen to the world around you. There’s something magical about letting the universe know that you’re open, receptive, waiting.

So I walked. MILES on the island. One day I clocked 5 miles just meandering into shops, touching things that looked pretty, stopping to watch some boats, grabbing a sandwich and sitting on a bench looking at nothing.

When was the last time you ate a sandwich on a park bench listening to nothing while looking at nothing specific? Just noticing the people strolling by? Just allowing the world in?

I woke up before everyone else. I sat on the beach and took in sunrise after sunrise. I drank my coffee slowly, started a knitting project that has been on the back-burner of my life, and started reading a (new to me) series of short stories.

And on the second to last day of our trip…. do you know what happened while I took in this sunrise?

Yep, you best believe it. The opening scene of a book popped into my head.

I distinctly remember watching a seagull preening his feathers and bathing himself in a puddle — and I thought to myself, “I never knew seagulls cleaned themselves like that.”

And that’s when the scene illuminated, brimming with color, inside my mind’s eye.

I have no idea when I’ll write it. Could be tomorrow, could be in the middle of the night while I’m feeding baby #2, could be 20 years from now. But I proved something to myself that I had known for a long time, and have just been refusing to acknowledge it as truth.

ALL OF THAT TO SAY:

You’ve been scrubbing the dishes in a rush.

You’re rushing to do your skincare routine to get in bed faster.

You’re trying so hard to optimize every minute.

You’re not uncreative.

You don’t NOT have the time.

You just haven’t taken a long enough walk yet.

You just haven’t sat still for enough moments to become receptive.

It’s time to slow down and let the ideas in.

Whether you believe yourself to be an artist, or you are the most left-brain logical thinker out there — creativity lives in all of us in different ways. If you’ve read all the way here and this resonated in some way, I’d encourage you to go through the exercise I did with myself and think: where could I slow down this week? Where could I allow space for quiet, reflection and receptiveness? Where can I optimize less to let more IN?

And since this is a platform of writers, here are a few books that may help get you started:

(the aforementioned) Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Writing, Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd

Unsayable, a Life in Writing by Michael Cunningham (this one I just picked up while on Nantucket and cannot wait to dive in!)

A Creative Compass by Emma Gannon (also go follow her fabulous Substack here)

The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (and her Substack, here)

To a beautiful week ahead.

XO -

SB