Light and Dark in the Time of Covid
What is it about mood that strikes a creative to mark a spot with it?
I follow many artists, musicians and storytellers online in the hopes of gleaning wisdom about the creative process. I have learned about workflow, long range planning, money and marketing. I’m pondering though, as I often do, how these creatives manage to produce daily work through tumultuous life events. Everybody has them…you know, the ones that make the needle on the emotions machine jack up and down feverishly. Bad marriages, abuse, wayward children, job loss, death, sickness, addiction, miscarriage, childlessness, the separation and loss of our nation as we know it, chase us into dark places. How do we create in there?
I’ve seen such soulfully engaging work that draws my heart toward the artist. Surely this strange beauty was created in pain. Or in witnessing the pain of others. Or the pain of the world groaning for renewal and healing.
Living in emotional darkness has been, unfortunately, the backdrop of my life for 30 years. It is a lonely place. I have always been able to make sense of it somehow through writing or painting. God gave me these modalities to work out truth in life. They have been instrumental in my healing and have helped me reach my bandaged hands toward heaven. But right now, today, I just can’t get my body into the studio to paint. I’m too enraged, too embroiled to even sit still let alone make anything more than a giant black blob that I would probably spit on after. Have you ever felt so angry that you just couldn’t do it? Couldn’t do what you feel you were made for?
What is that? What is that voice that says, “Not today, girl. You got nothin’ in the tank. Go suck your thumb in a corner a couple of days.” (My inner dark voice has bad grammar, apparently…)
Holing up during Covid has been a blessing in that there is time, lots of it, to work. I’ve intentionally entered into abstracts and am drawn to bright splashes of color which really lifts my mood. I have been the most prolific and the most fulfilled artistically during this time. But also, holing up with Covid has been another layer on Life’s Yucky Cake. I want to see smiles, have my neighbors over, hug people. (I really miss hugging people…)
It’s interesting, as I have been writing, I’ve realized that I am creating. It’s just different today. I’ve realized that it’s ok to take a break, to breathe, to meditate on the myriad of blessings that I sit in daily, to cherish my relationships that are life giving. It’s ok to not be ok sometimes. It’s ok to lament. I guess appropriate lamenting harkens back to the beauty that was and looks toward the colorful horizon of a new day.
Sometimes all it takes is another spin around the sun.