For a long time, I’ve tried to use writing as the creative release my soul seems to crave. It’s taken me the better part of 20 years to realize that much like the carpenter whose own home is filled with half-finished or not-quite-started renovation projects, attempting to find joy using the same medium I use to earn a living is perhaps too big of an ask to myself.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve felt myself drawn more towards other means of creative expression … finding childlike curiosity and a sort-of beginner’s mindset in experimenting with mixed media collages, carefully curated using bits of acrylic and watercolour paintings I’ve attempted. Or piecing together small scraps of fabric, carefully cut out from pieces of clothing owned by my grandmothers and great-grandmothers, hand-stitched in the evenings, after a full-day of online remote work when my brain can no longer endure the bright glare of a screen.
While the practices of both painting and slow stitching somehow have what I can only describe as a meditative, healing quality, I still find myself called to write. To tell stories in the way I am called to, letting go of the people pleasing and an increasingly impossible set of self-expectations that have somehow woven itself into my writing over the years. Perhaps the message here is to explore other creative mediums as a path towards letting go and realigning myself with curiosity and joy.
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