Confident Creativity

My life is full and past full, and - lest anyone worry- all the categories of activities are great.  Seriously, there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the opportunities that have come to me.  In fact, managing them all has become more of a problem than seems plausible.

Here's what is happening.  I work on my regular research development job.  I teach graduate students.  I have some ideas for expanding my (as yet minuscule) national presence in my career.   I have a personal trainer, and I am getting stronger.  And I take somewhat haphazard but enthusiastic care of my dog.  So, work, working out, and dog.  That's what I do.  And I can't even keep all of that organized and together, truth be told.

And yet, it feels like there is no creativity in this abundant life - and that feels like an empty space in my heart.  It used to be true that a large portion of my creativity was being used in my job.  That's no longer true.  Long story.  No resentment.  But true. I used to knit, sew, bake, write....  I used to create whole agencies and programs.  Most of that is gone, as well.

I had a disturbing but also fascinating chat the other day with the new-ish Dean of the Visual and Performing Arts.  We had never met before, and I half-fun and full-earnest identified myself as the least creative person on the planet.  He's a Director-turned-Dean, and directors are used to looking intently at a person and seeing, well, the resources they have to work with.  A little like the work a social worker does, and yet entirely unlike it as well.  In any event, he said no.... your creativity is ....here.... here.... and here....  And he was mostly right.

The Dean had known me for half an hour.  He didn't see me entirely clearly; he's not THAT good ;)  But he did give me the nudge to see things differently.  If, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, it's important to create beauty with every day that you are given, then I not only need to name creativity appropriately but to nurture it appropriately.   

This blog could be creativity.  Book club inspires a kind of creativity - and not just because I'm making things up because I didn't finish the book.  Remodeling my house and gardens is a kind of creativity.  Non-blog writing is a kind of creativity, even though it is emphatically non-fiction that I am creating.  These are all things that move me toward the life I want, but also ARE the life I want.  (The process and the outcome are the same.  Does that make sense?)  

What's a little uncomfortable is that there might not be room for the activities that used to be my creative outlets.  I love to knit.  I flat-out love it.  In very many ways, it brought me here - and that's not hyperbole.  But maybe it's ok that it's on hiatus in my life.  I won't forget how to do it.  It will still be there should more time become available.

I wonder how I didn't notice that creative outlets can change over time.