Hello Reader
I keep getting whiffs of the sweet sea as I move around. It smells like picking blackberries near the ocean, the salt heavy in the air, amongst dried wood and moss.
There’s nothing like finding a new scent to indulge in little pockets of pleasure throughout the day. It reminds me to be in the present moment, to savor what’s here.
Lately, I’ve been caught in a whirl of desiring, wanting more, new, other than this.
On our limited series podcast, The Making of [An Album], Tyler and I discussed the role imagination plays in our lives and our creativity. It’s the blood that pumps through our creative veins. Our ability to imagine allows us to create new worlds and realities. It fuels hope and possibility - for another way, for our potential, for a better future.
Yet, when we start to live in the fantasy more than reality, when we stop seeing what’s real, we’re not fully inhabiting life. We’re lost in the fiction of our minds.
Tyler and I explored a poem I wrote called ‘the morning after’ from Welcome to the Creative Club, (below), which tells the story of a woman (me) who decides not to get lost in fantasy for too long. She plays with the idea of what could be, fills in the blanks of the person in front of her with Faber-Castell pencils, and lets herself get lost in her creation and the moment. But she won’t remain in the fantasy. She’s just visiting.
She knows it only lasts so long. At some point, the colors fade, and reality seeps in. The more time she spends in lala land, the more painful it is to accept reality. The harder the break. It reminds her of being in front of a wave that’s about to crash and fall, pulling her to her knees.
the morning after
a poem for protagonists
The day-after-sweat pools under my bralette as I tap laptop keys, writing a new story, words easing from me like hot whispers in the dark. I flip my hair to the side, the scent of stale cigs bringing last night into the morning light.
A flash of us raising chipped mugs, ‘special’ coffee spiked with bottom shelf vodka, grinning madly under the neon OPEN 24-HOURS sign in the diner window. Wet feral eyes, malnourished hearts, and fermented dreams in a red booth.
The way the cross on your chain moves along your tongue. How I place bubblegum pink toenails between your blue jeans. Our live wires speed up my pulse, raise arm hairs, make me bite my bottom lip. Chiseled jawlines, exposed collarbones, sticky french toast tongues, and inky numbers on a diner napkin trick me into believing this night will never end.
But it does.
I throw the crumpled paper into the bin and miss.
Perspiration remains my only link to you.
Lately, I find myself holding on to the napkin.
We need to inhabit fantastical worlds sometimes, especially when we’re dreaming of possible futures and building worlds with our work.
We just can’t get stuck there.
As Pema Chodron says, “As people who want to live a good, full, unrestricted, adventurous, real kind of life, there is a concrete instruction we can follow: see what is.”
My imagination saved me more times than I can count, especially as a child and teenager. When I had to move again, after connecting with a place and people, my imagination helped me create my own world, one I wouldn’t have to leave. I also got lost in other people’s worlds, sitting on the floor of Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, dipping in and out of stories that took my hand as I boarded planes.
But when I refuse, avoid, or resist reality as it is, I disconnect from my real power: being able to creatively direct my life, the next scene, my experience. I need to see things as they are in order to shape them. It’s easy to slip into embellishment, to escape into an idea of something, especially when reality is painful. But I won’t be able to change anything if I don’t remain in it.
How can I change what I won’t accept? I need to accept it first; only then can I possibly do something about it.
There’s power and clarity in being able to see things, people, and circumstances as they are. It’s challenging to drop bias and judgment, the long shadow of our past experiences, but our freedom depends on it. It takes strength to look at reality, naked and trembling, as it is. It can be easy to avoid pain. But clear sight sets us free.
My mind has been busy dreaming of what could be, avoiding looking at what I really want because this requires more work and a heart-to-heart with me.
I’m realizing the past pull toward fantasy is spilling into the present, a lingering wanting. It comes down to being where I am, in this heady blend of uncertainty, avoidance, and hope. Recognizing it’s all right here.
My dear friend and editor, Shanna, sent me this quote over the weekend in response to my longings, meanderings, and confusion:
“When the mind is still and tranquil, not seeking any answer or solution even, neither resisting or avoiding, it is only then that there can be regeneration. Because then the mind is capable of perceiving what is true and it is the truth the liberates, not your effort to be free.”
- Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti hit like an overweight boxer.
Sometimes, the seeking overshadows the having. The fantasy rides roughshod over reality. Leaves it dusty and choking, holding on to our freedom, which is also left behind.
I’m a big fan of what I call “holding both.” We can hold both fantasy and reality. Imagination can shape our experience when our feet are firmly planted in what’s here.
As Walt Whitman wrote, “Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).”
Imagination and clarity are needed to live a creative life. It’s a balance. Not getting stuck in one or the other, remembering that reality is malleable, and imagination is necessary to create, well, anything.
When reality bites, we might rub the salve of fantasy on the wound. Avoid what’s really going on. Fight and scramble to solve, trying to effort our way into freedom, force change to be anywhere but here. This avoidance traps us in a weird reality fantasy fusion. Neither here nor there.
So, I’m trying to look at my desires and life as it is. What I really want now, not some imagined villa in Italy that will provide freedom, endless creative space, and all my big ol’ heart desires.
Looking at reality as it is, there is something I am trying to escape. The need to rebuild connection in my marriage after busyness divided and conquered. Instead, I’m looking for a pill that washes down easily and changes everything without much effort on my part.
The reality of finding a place in Italy, with the right location and community, the right house, and a budget that suits me, is more than I want to take on right now.
I’d rather focus on what’s in front of me: my marriage, a new book, and opportunities I might not recognize because I’m lost in fantasy, in the idea of what could be.
We can get delulu about what success means, what we’re dreaming of will actually require, and what it will feel like when we get “there”.
The real work is not blocking our eyes from the harsh light of reality, looking at what we're avoiding, and what we really want. Meaty, confrontational, and rewarding stuff.
It’s been helpful to see things as they are.
I’m able to see what I really need: a space to create, time to reconnect with my partner, and to enjoy being right here, right now. The scent of blackberries, salt, wood, and moss reminds me to do just that.
Keep creating,
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Want to read more about creative living? Get your copy of Welcome to the Creative Club. Part memoir, part manifesto, part gentle rebellion, it’s an invitation to reclaim your creativity and make life your biggest art project. Already own it? Click here.
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