THE PERPETUAL VISITOR: Sustainable Creative Living.
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Things I Teach
  • Things I Make
    • The Book: The Perpetual Visitor
    • Wild Unfolding: and other poems
    • New Bird
    • The Podcast
    • Theatre
    • Film
    • Poetry
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Things I Teach
  • Things I Make
    • The Book: The Perpetual Visitor
    • Wild Unfolding: and other poems
    • New Bird
    • The Podcast
    • Theatre
    • Film
    • Poetry
  • Contact

Tangled Treasure (A New Year's Wish)

12/31/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
It's always tempting to make resolutions for a New Year. It can be a hard time of year if you're feeling depressed, anxious, sad, or generally unsure about what comes next. I gave a lot of thought to what my resolutions might be for 2019. True, there's so many creative projects that I want to work on and meditation goals and mental health progress I want to make and at the same time, my gut says that the last thing I need are resolutions disguised as a festive to-do list that heaps even more pressure upon my currently full but sometimes self-critical heart. 

It's painful to feel like you're failing to be ambitious or motivated enough or feeling as grateful as you feel you should be. What if we were able to make room for these feelings tonite and just let them be there? No guilt, no needing to plan a fabulous year ahead or even know what you're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow. What if we simply allowed ourselves to feel what we are feeling right this moment? We always want things to be OR. Gratitude OR despair. Love OR hate. Inspiration OR depression. What if we allowed ourselves to feel confusion AND curiosity AND grief AND hope for the next twelve months? The human heart knows not of the rules we fashion for how we think we should feel. It's all in there swimming around together. I am starting to think that's ok? And if that's ok and we don't have to spend our precious energy fighting ourselves, putting things into categories, locking some things away to keep forever and banishing other things, desperate to cut them out of us for good, what would we have the energy to do? To see? To make? To BE? Gosh, I really want to know.

This night and tomorrow and the days after, I'm going to see what happens if the only resolution I make is to allow it all: feelings, fears, thoughts, and on and on. I'm sick of grinding myself down in the name of motivation, progress, perfection, and getting upset because I fail to live up to a standard that is super-human and therefore impossible. I'm a human (so are you) and perhaps giving myself the gift of being human is the belated Christmas gift that I didn't know I wanted and needed. 

When (not if) I fail at and get frustrated with this goal, I will allow those feelings, too. In those moments, I will kindle and rekindle the fire in my heart with theatre and poetry and music and wonder and good food and people I love and my sweet cat and big dreams, and kindle it yet again when it burns out and grows cold for the upteenth time. I want to know what happens if I forgive myself the anger that arises when I can't do something fast enough, well enough, and when I feel like I myself am not enough. I want to see what it's like if I greet whatever comes up with "Well, hey there. Come on in, you're welcome here", even if I am feeling stingy and want to throw a tantrum and make that thought or feeling to leave and never show it's face ever again. So much of my suffering comes not from the things that happen to me (getting sick, accruing debt, the different phases of friend and family relationships, a professional hardship, a creative block) but to how I punish myself for the things that are inevitable for all of us in life from time to time. 

There's a Buddhist story of the two arrows: when something painful happens to us, that's the first arrow. It's not our fault and we have a right to feel that pain that results from said event. But we shoot ourselves with the second arrow when we choose to punish ourselves for the thing that wasn't our fault in the first place. "How could I be so stupid? How dare I feel that way? How could I be such a failure?" All second arrows, shot at ourselves.

I'm going to try to lay down my bow and arrow and give myself a chance to heal from all the times I've wounded myself. Call a truce, see what it's like to wave the white flag of surrender. Allow it all to just exist as it is. 

As violinist Itzhak Perlman said “Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.” Maybe that's our task as human beings, too. Maybe our job isn't to stop all the painful feelings from coming, but to notice them, love ourselves not despite but because of them, and lay the hurts in the pile alongside the pieces of joy we've collected and from this pile of tangled treasure, believing that there is gold waiting to be found and shared with someone else who also needs a reminder of the beauty that lay inside the rubble. 

There's magic in this mess that's YOU. It might be time that we learn to love going emotional and spiritual dumpster diving. There's no knowing what we might find. Happy New Year, Friends.
2 Comments

Give Yourself a Gift

12/24/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash
I hope everyone is enjoying a holiday season that's hopefully a little simpler and a little slower. It can be hard to slow down but I'm doing my best to put a few creative projects on the  back burner for the next week or so; I am trusting that they will keep bubbling away, happy to wait for me while I catch up on sleep, laundry, and generally being a human after a full fall of a new day job, performing, and teaching.  I'm so excited about the New Year and all the things I want to make, but right now? I need to take care of my human self.  Without her, my creative self doesn't exist. 

Go to bed 30 minutes earlier tonite. 

Pick up a book that is begging to be read.

Take a hot bath.

Wash and fold your laundry.

Lay on your couch and stare at the ceiling for awhile.

Cook something delicious.

Take your vitamins.

Spend time with someone who makes you feel good about the world (yup, furry friends count!)

Have a guilt free movie marathon in your pajamas.

Curl up in your very own fort of pillows and blankets and let go of the world and your worries, even  if only for five minutes. 

Print or write the following sentence and hang it on your bathroom mirror or fridge:
"I, (fill in your name) give myself permission to rest, relax, and take a step back from my creative projects over the holidays. I give myself permission to trust this will make me a lighter, more imaginative, healthier version of myself--the human and the creative."

Only when we take a time out can we return with more clarity, curiosity, passion, and purpose. No one can go 365 days a year, so let's make this season a time to say yes to sustainability. This creative path is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Wishing you a restorative holiday season my friends. I'll see you in 2019!
2 Comments

For Your Consideration

12/8/2018

3 Comments

 
Picture
Photo by Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash
The next time you get really down and convince yourself that you don't have anything worth offering the world, that your creative impulses couldn't possibly compete with doing something practical, like accounting or nursing or knowing how to fix a car, try this.

Play a song, watch a movie, read a few lines of your favorite book, move to music that makes you feel like you MUST dance, look deeply into the brush strokes of a painting.

Become aware of how your heart beats.

How you feel a little less alone.

How, no matter what you're going through, you can have the tiny comfort of knowing that somewhere in history, someone felt the way you do and instead of letting it eat them up from the inside out, they chose to dig up what they may have perceived as ugly or special or completely ordinary, shake off the dirt, and throw it up into the sun, allowing us all to see that what we most try to hide might just be the best thing we can share with others. 


After you realize how much this song, movie, book, dance, or piece of art makes you feel like you might just belong in this big, messy, hard, tender, gorgeous life after all, go back to telling yourself that what you are dreaming of, making, and putting your whole life force into doesn't matter. 

Notice how you feel. 

The shift won't happen all at once, but almost nothing ever does.

Keep listening, watching, reading, moving and admiring and allow your heart to make room for and consider the idea that, just as your favorite humans and creative souls make the world more beautiful bit by bit, you just might just be part of that, too. ​
3 Comments

Motivation Monday

12/2/2018

1 Comment

 
PicturePhoto by Jamie Street on Unsplash
 

 








































​



​Happy Monday, and welcome to December, Friends! Here's five fun links from around the web that I found that made me smile and feel a bit more playful today. I hope they make you feel a little lighter, too.

1.  This past week, Smithsonian Magazine shared the good news that you can now take a trip back to being a kid and check out the soundtrack to Sesame Street, streaming now via Spotify and iTunes  Go ahead, listen to Cookie Starts with C while eating your favorite cookie. These gluten free chocolate chip cookies  by America's Test Kitchen look brilliant. 

2.  The movie Mrs. Doubtfire turned 25 (!) this year. Where did the time (and the fashion) go? This post over at Man Repeller revisits the movie to see how it's aged and it's pretty fun to look back at the film and themes in ways both serious and silly. 

3.  I have kept a journal since I was seven or eight years old and I am definitely going to do this next time I crack open a fresh notebook to start writing in. Who's your guardian spirit?

4.  I don't usually believe in rules for creativity, but I loved these 33 rules for being an artist over at Vulture. 

5.  More evidence that engaging in crafts and creativity is good for your mental health. Not that you need another reason to plan your next crafty experiment, but still, pretty neat to know that the scientific community is catching up with what our souls have known for a long time: making things just feels good. I've got my eye on a new knitting project.  What are you dreaming of making?

Wishing you all a week full of possibilities and playfulness. Have a good one!

1 Comment

    Author

    My name is Melissa and I'm an actor, playwright, author, filmmaker, and teaching artist who wants to help you discover, cultivate, and care for your creativity. 
     
    What does being creative mean to you?

    How do you play every day?

    This is a space for taking a break, a breath,  and finding ways to flex our imagination and find the joy where we can. 

    ​No one is going to present us with a ready made creative life--we have  to step up and gift it to ourselves. I'm so glad you're here.

    Categories

    All
    Artist Dates
    Creative Recharge
    Creative Risks
    Motivation Monday
    Persistence
    Play
    Success
    Theatre
    Tiny Tips For Creativity
    Whole Artist
    Writing

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Want to get blog posts delivered right to your inbox? Sign up to receive The Perpetual Visitor below and never miss creative conversation!

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.