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| "Oasis in the Desert," Emil Orlik, c. 1913 Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program |
Hello friends,
In the past I've written about the importance of having a good workspace, but I've come to realize that it's equally important to have a good escape place, as well. Often when we engage in the creative process we do so to relax; for example, I like to knit meditatively while watching Netflix. It becomes easy to forget that being creative is also exhausting. Think about the amount of brain power and emotional energy that gets invested here: the time spent deciding what project to do, planning it out, obtaining and budgeting the resources, finding time to do it. Add to that deadlines for completing them, figuring out what you're going to do with it (is it a gift?), and setbacks encountered along the way. Then, if you're trying to monetize your hobby, all that energy increases tenfold: Will it sell? How do I promote it? What price should it be? Is it worth it?
If you take your creative passions seriously enough, it can be like having a second job.
And that's all without counting the actual time and energy that go into physically making what it is you're making. And any physical problems your body might have to endure, like the fact that knitting too much triggers my carpal tunnel syndrome and makes my hands go numb, or that sitting for a long time screws up my hips. I know wire turners who had to stop because they were getting migraines, painters who had to stop because of the fumes...Oy.
I have come to the conclusion that maintaining a creative lifestyle, freeing yourself up to really give yourself over to the creative process, and staying in it for the long haul require the ability to get away, not just from the exigencies of daily life and from your day job if you have one, but from the demands that we put on ourselves in our creative endeavors as well.
My happy place, it's no secret, is Massachusetts. I used to live there, my best friends are there, and so it gives me an immediate sense of sentimentality, homeyness, and familiarity. It's also cute beyond measure. Going to Massachusetts is like drinking warm cocoa. And oh, those New England seasons, and that perfect mix of cosmopolitan grit and novelesque, pastoral scenery.
To me going to Mass is like being whisked away into a fairytale. Time stops. The rest of the world ceases to exist. Anything that was bothering me is left at the border.
But if you want to triangulate even further, past the state level, past even the city level, I can actually pinpoint the exact geographic spot at which I am my most relaxed and content: the courtyard at Boston Public Library. The entire building is gorgeous and palatial, the most beautiful place in the city, a testament to Boston's high regard for learning and knowledge and education. It is full of marble statues and frescoes and mosaics, and at the center of all that splendor sits the courtyard:
Have you ever seen anything so heartstoppingly magnificent? It is literally a cloistered little sanctuary right in the middle of the city. You can see the tops of the skyscrapers that surround the building over the library walls but you can't hear any of the noises from the bustling streets outside. It exists in perfect, quiet seclusion. This is where I go to experience beauty and calm. And if I can't get there physically, it's where I go mentally.
Though the reading room ain't half bad neither (no, that isn't Ancient Rome).
This place is so heavily ingrained in my mind as the source of all goodness and inspiration that its energy followed me all the way to Texas. I was in Austin a few months ago and, looking for something unusual and purely local to do when I had some free time, I stopped by Museum of the Weird completely on a whim off the street. My tour guide performed a psychic demonstration for us. Mind you, I was there by myself and the other people in my tour knew nothing about me. I hadn't said a word about Boston the entire time I was there, mentioning only that I was from D.C.
The guide asked me to visualize a place, any place in the world. Naturally I picked the BPL courtyard. My guide then drew something on a little slip of paper and handed it to me. He said that I was imagining something like an oasis, though that wasn't quite right, and he saw big dark things towering over. I saw that on the paper he had scribbled pond with a little palm tree, some books, and written the word "Boston" on it.
This blog isn't about the occult, and I won't speculate about what eerie things may or may not have been happening. But I will comment further simply to note how fitting it is that the image I had in my mind of BPL's courtyard came through as an oasis. That is the function it serves in my life, and how strong those mental and emotional associations are for me.
I'm at a point where merely closing my eyes for a few seconds and imagining the courtyard makes me feel calm and centered, and helps me focus my attention. It's not magic. It's conditioning. I've come to associate those feelings with that mental image, and so visualizing the image triggers the feelings. You might even go so far as to call it a form of self-hypnosis. It's invaluable.
Having the ability to immediately calm and focus oneself is beneficial in any aspect of life, but it is particularly helpful when engaging in creative spaces, where the options and pressures and possibilities are literally endless. It's easy for creative types to get distracted and enthusiastic about a million different ideas and projects, and equally easy to burn out because, as I discussed earlier, the creative process is so heavy on personal output that you can't help but become exhausted. So when I need a breather, I think about the courtyard, or look at whatever new pictures of it (there are always plenty) have emerged on Instagram.
What about you, readers? Do you have a designated place you go to, whether physically or mentally, to achieve a sense of calm and focus? Do you find the creative process relaxing or exhausting or a combination of the two? Do you find yourself needing to take breaks from your own creative endeavors? When you find yourself overwhelmed what do you do to give yourself a break? Discuss in the comments.
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