One Year In

a very amateur very quick study of winter

I began writing here on Substack a year ago. Over fifty posts later, with about seventy-five subscribers (a number that has ebbed and flowed), I find I have settled into posting most Sundays. In the beginning, I had a lot to say and averaged three posts a week. I took the summer months off and came back to writing on an irregular basis in the fall. I seem to have hit a stride of sorts this winter, posting weekly. Often, when I open my computer to write on a Sunday (or a Friday), I have little idea of what I will convey. I just start writing, as writers must do. I imagine that many painters and composers do the same. We just start, and we then see what happens. Something always happens. When I didn’t sit down to write (over the summer and some weeks in the fall), I missed opportunities to see what would flow if I had given the process a chance.

I wonder if this might be a metaphor for other aspects of my life. I used to paint with watercolor. It’s been years since I sat down to do that. I tell myself it will be hard to pick this up again. It wasn’t easy twenty years ago, when I first began to paint. I have some of my favorite works around the house, not framed, just propped up here and there. They remind me of this thing I used to enjoy doing. The winter scene posted here is a quick one I did. Not very sophisticated, it nevertheless turned out to my liking. When I look at it, I remember enjoying the process of painting it. I didn’t sketch it first; I just went for the mood I saw out the window. And I captured that mood. This is why it is propped in my dining room now, to remind me of this thing I can do if I choose to wade back in.

There are many things I do on a regular basis that don’t involve much creativity. I exercise, I clean my house, I am working on culling and organizing my belongings. I do these things for various reasons: I like feeling healthy, I like a clean house, I like an uncluttered living environment. I don’t question the importance of these activities. I don’t question how much time I devote to them. But creativity feeds me too. So, why don’t I pick up a paintbrush? Is it fear of failure? Is it not wanting to feel like a beginner again? Can I write my way into painting, as I write my way into personal essays?

As a psychotherapist, I understand that the only way for a person to get past their resistance to change is to face that resistance, to examine it, to sit with it. There is no way around it. There is no pushing through. Acknowledging what scares us is the first step in overcoming a fear.

Somehow, writing has never scared me. Painting is another story. But what if I do only what is comfortable? Is that how I want to live my life? Is that how I have lived my life? No, I have not, so why would I start doing that now? Why would you?