struggling to write

I'm married to a mathematician. I feel like that sounds as obscure as telling you I'm married to a philosopher, which is not so far off. People get all squirmy and uncomfortable when I tell them that. I start hearing confessions about how bad that individual was at calculus, how much they hated statistics, or how they just can't add. Or on the other hand, people tell me how much they loved math in school, the nice orderly security of having a definite answer amidst all the other ambiguity of life. Whatever the reaction, it's usually fairly strong, and followed by a quick change of subject. (Are you squirming right now just reading this?) 


I can only imagine what it is like to walk in Manny's shoes and have to experience that much more directly all the time. Anyways, if people don't change the subject so quickly, and they don't always, I love to talk about how amazingly creative the world of math is once you get past the basic requirements schools impose on you. I had no idea, even until years into Manny's Ph.D. program, just what it meant to be a mathematician, and to be honest, I'm probably fooling myself to believe that I get it even now. He humors me. 


What's beautiful about the fact that math is surprisingly imaginative is that it makes our unlikely pairing into a beautifully rooted connection in creativity. I was a philosophy and english major, he majored in physics and math. The only class we had together was ballroom/swing dance. But because there was this creative analysis at the root of what we each loved about our respective disciplines, even if we don't understand the details of what the other has to say, we get the core experience, and for us, that ends up being what truly matters.


The other week, we were able to resonate with each other when our hands were full with Sofia and he just wanted to sit down and concentrate on some research, and I just wanted to sit down and write, and when we were finally able to, we both felt so freed. When I told him how, on days that I don't get to write, it feels like there is a traffic jam of material in my head just blaring their horns, dying to break through, he got me. 


Maybe even if you don't write, or even if you're not a theoretical mathematician (because I know those make up a huge percentage of this blogs following, right?), but you have some form of creative expression, you get me too. Maybe you understand that once you start disciplining yourself to get into your craft, the art starts to flow much more easily and you find yourself refining your process and your results and growing in your abilities in little ways each time you get back to it. And that growth feels fantastic. And the traffic jam similarly grates at your brain and frustrates you. 


Sometimes life is crazy enough, I moved past the point of the traffic jam. The other day, I was so frazzled and sleep deprived I just could not get words out, I might have had a little baby-induced-aphasia. It was as if the road between my brain and my mouth (or fingers) simply crumbled apart. You know after you've been sitting in that traffic jam for long enough, as soon as you get a break through the cars (time to write) you let loose and drive like a maniac because you are making up for all that pent up energy and you drive your car up a median, or in my case write really weird blog posts that you have to come back to and edit furiously once you realize the mistake you've made. 


The worst stage is when I feel like I've been sitting in the traffic so long, I've just given up hope for any movement to pick up, and I've just reclined my seat and curled up behind the wheel to take a nap. On some days, by the time I get a chance to sit down, my brain is fried and it just takes so long to settle into a creatively productive space.


Anyone else connecting with me here? I'm grateful for this blog as it forces me to get some flow going, and I think that helps keep the creativity alive in dry spells. But since it seems like this struggle may transcend across talents. Maybe you identify and have some other tools for how we can navigate this traffic. How do you keep the creative juices flowing? How do you create space for your craft amidst the chaos of life? How do you satisfy those needs when your art can't find its outlet? 

Letting the light come in

I can hardly believe it, Lobsters, but last week, I actually turned on my sewing machine. 

Before Sofia was born, Manny got me a sewing machine for my birthday in order to fill decades of dreaming of becoming a proficient quilter. I made a few squares, baby came, and then I went into early retirement. I finally have space for craft projects now, but the supplies and tools all just sit there, mocking me as I run back and forth chasing my little mobility machine. 

But this week, fed up with my computer, and finally relieved when Sofia went down for a nap [she hadn't been napping for a few weeks], I turned to my sewing machine for revitalization. By some stroke of fate, I managed to whip the project out before she woke up and without any huge disasters or even re-starts. This is not usually how well my crafting works out. Not that the finished project is worth any lavish display, but it is functional, and that's enough to satisfy me. 

I know there are lots of blogs out there with incredibly helpful tips and tools for making everything in your house yourself, I even knew a guy who once promised me a home-made video-cam [and this was in the '90's when I didn't actually believe these would ever truly exist, and was mostly mocking him when I told him, "sure, I'll take one"]. This is not that blog. I didn't use or even make a pattern, I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants. My most careful decision was the fabric, the rest was mostly just me messing around. 

But just the messing around felt good. To think the project through. To pull together all the tools. To feel the fabric break beneath the cutter. To smooth the pieces away from each other. To guide them through the machine. To let the friction work between my fingers as I turned it inside out. To experiment and adjust. To iron out the finished product. To wave it before my then awake daughter to show her what I'd made.

I am not sharing so much because I think you are all dying to sew your own curtain tie-backs, but just to celebrate the joy of creating, and to appreciate the gift of light. 

I have been warned hundreds of times since our August arrival that the early sun sets are one of the hardest parts of enduring Maine's winters, being so far north and all. But like many things we are experiencing here, you don't truly understand the wisdom people are granting you until you live through it. It gets real dark, real early, and its real weird. Sofia woke up from her nap and was honestly frightened by the fact that it was already completely dark out. Now, any bit of vitamin D we can expose our epidermis to is an urgent issue of gratitude. 

So while in the summer I was so relieved when they finally installed our curtains (privacy, protection from the warm sun in an house without air conditioning), it is now a relief to be able to pull those curtains back and just let the light come in.

It is a rather passive act, letting the light come in. I did not make the sun, I do not warm our house with the suns rays, but I made way for the light to do its thing after a time of not. I don't know that I'm really much of a crafter, but it felt good to craft. I don't know whether I am a writer in the making, but it feels good to write about this and share with you. I don't know if I am an artist in the making, but there is a harmony with my deeper self when I am able to create. I do know that I am a creature of the light, and it warms my soul to let the light in.