 Since the first session of my Cultivating Creative Expression class way back in August, the students and I have had several regular and ongoing assignments. Just like physical exercise or daily vitamins, these assignments aim to build and maintain vitality, resiliency, and full range of (e)motion:
Daily Diary (all day, every day—at least ideally) It can seem as if creativity strikes like a bolt out of the blue, and sure, sometimes it does, but a more reliable source of inspiration is the world around you. There are two essential steps for harvesting the gold nuggets littering the ground at your feet: you have to spot them and then you have to actually pick them up! And by “pick them up” I mean write them down: trusting your memory to hang onto a good idea is like leaving a gold nugget on the ground for later. I had the students use Lynda Barry’s fantastic framework for a daily diary (please read more about it in the maestra’s own words). There is so much to love in this format:
Final note: because this was an assignment, and because students are students, there were several instances where people missed a few days (or weeks) and then tried to go back and fill them in later. THIS DOES NOT WORK. As I put it to one of my sporty students: imagine you skipped the gym for 6 days; would it make sense to go in on the seventh day and cram a week’s worth of workouts? This journal exercise is about building creative muscle through regular and repetitive use. If you stop, start again wherever you happen to be. Off-Leash Hour (minimum one hour per week) I couldn’t think of any better image to illustrate this assignment than dogs at a dog park. Picture that moment when the leash is unclipped and the dog bursts like a firework into joyous action. Leash-on versus leash-off, he might seem like an entirely different dog; I suspect that the leash-off version is closer to the dog’s true self. The off-leash hour is your time to do something, anything (ok, sure, anything not criminal or immoral) that makes joy come out of your pores. No judgment: whether it’s a video game, a long bath, a session of Ukrainian egg-decorating, or running figure-8s at the dog park, it’s valid. Extra credit if your off-leash activity takes you outdoors. I think that this practice has the potential to reconnect us with that playful, unselfconscious inner child that so many of us have paved over as adults. An hour of joyful freedom is like a taste-test, a sample of what it can feel like to genuinely invest in a creative practice. Giving (minimum one hour per month) Although I can argue for days that being actively creative is fundamentally about offering your best gifts to the world, and is therefore a generous and healing practice that effectively lifts all boats, the word on the street can say otherwise. Perhaps you’ve heard that creative pursuits are frivolous, or wasteful, or selfish? Maybe you’ve even taken these ideas onboard. In the long run it’s best to shove these unwelcome untruths out of your boat, but in the meantime let’s balance them out by dedicating some time to someone other than yourself. I’ve loved hearing about the things my students have done with their monthly giving hour. One of them noticed a elderly neighbor’s yard getting out of hand and stepped in to help out. Another started to make a point of striking up conversations with folks who seemed lost or lonely. Another started to leave early for classes so that she could pick up litter along the way (yes, I have added David Sedaris to her reading list). Heavy Lifting (minimum one hour per month) Speaking for myself, nothing chills my creative vim as efficiently as the cold shadow of an undone task. I mean the kind of thing that never goes away or gets better on its own, but only grows bigger, darker, and scarier, sucking any spare energy into its vortex. (I was about to say that this is especially true of anything that has an emotional component, but on second thought, almost any task that passes its due date will start to carry emotional weight. For example, the need to clean out my crisper drawer currently fills me with a sense of sadness, loss, and thwarted potential.) This task asks you to really level with yourself: what is it that you are avoiding most? And see there! You just looked directly at that horrible thing and are still alive to take the next step: do something about it. It doesn’t have to be a life-or-death matter, as long as taking care of it lets you breathe easier. Over this semester my heavy lifting has run quite a gamut. One month I gritted my teeth and sorted out some issues with the IRS: whew! I also initiated a couple of long-avoided carefrontations with dear friends: hurray! And I did four loads of laundry AND put them away: ahhhhh… Bonus, you eventually learn that it takes less time and effort to just deal with the damn problem than it took to avoid it. Can you think of another arena in which the muscles of decisive action might come in handy? (HINT: YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE. Oh wait, that was the answer, not a hint. Decisive action in action!) I hope that some of you reading this will find these practices as helpful as I have. If something shakes loose for you, I’d love to hear about it. More Creativity Camp activities and assignments to come…
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