Today I picked up some magazines and a book from Dad's bookshelf. That's at least what I call it, even if Mum rearranged it a little. It's still 'Dad themed' books - photography, yoga, surfing, and so on - just a bit better organised. I like to thumb through some inspirational material and learn a few things over a coffee in the morning.

I don't feel inspired to create much at the moment. It feels a little pointless if I can't share it with Dad. He was always so proud of me for whatever I did and he was so interested in photography that he would talk to me about it all the time. I would roll my eyes each time he asked if I shot in RAW or whether I used eye autofocus. The sicker he got, the more forgetful he became. I would marvel at him persisting taking photos even as he was dying - in the last two weeks, his photographs were terrible, but he'd still snap away.

Perhaps my brain is just a little overwrought. Grief is stressful. Perhaps one doesn't have room for creativity when one is processing death. Perhaps I can't see any meaning in creativity when I know I'm going to die. This isn't meant to be maudlin, or self pitying, but a fact.

Talking to a guy I met online got me thinking. Cy is travelling in a Land Rover from Hong Kong to Europe and Africa. He had a corporate job and left it to go travelling, then quit entirely. He's a great photographer and has taken some beautiful photos on his travels. He lacks confidence, like I do, but we agreed that perhaps creativity isn't about what people think of your work, but the process of doing creativity. The outcome doesn't always matter. We simply have a desire to create that can't be restrained.

For him, it was going down a rabbit hole of teaching himself a skill - throwing himself all into it. This prevented him from starting because he knows how time consuming it is, and he knows that he'll spend all that time on it and then get bored and move onto the next thing. I feel similiarly - and I'm twenty years older than him, I laughed, and thus have twenty years more rabbit holes under my belt. The thought of spending time learning something in order to create something beautiful paralyses me. It's why I haven't signed up for the hand pottery classes I have been interested in for the last two years. If I invest all this time into this skill, and then get bored and moved onto the next thing, what then was the point?

And so I procrastinate, which is equally a waste of time. It's my brain avoiding the process. But as I said to Cy, I know there's meaning in the process. We are alive, thus we create - we are creators. This helps us understand the world. We find joy in creating something we think is beautiful, from a hand made figurine to a garden to a photograph to a short story. Do we just put that to one side because it's too hard?

What if I don't exercise my creativity muscles? Do I lost the art, so to speak? Would I be happy without creating? Do I make do with small acts of creation - a garden, a meal, a beautiful home?

Perhaps I'm just overthinking it.

Maybe I have to start small, but be persistant. What if I do what Patti Smith did for her Book of Days, by just taking a photo every day for 365 days? By doing so, I could practice my photography skills, and I'd have a record of my year, at least. Maybe it starts with small intentions - committments to some kinds of creative process, however small, whatever the outcome.

Because these feelings of ennui will not do.

To find meaning, I think I have to create my own meaning.

I am beginning to realise that these questions and conversations about creativity is really about transition - it's about navigating my grief, questioning my purpose, and finding a way forward. However challenging, I'm leaning into this fertile ground, knowing that it is possible to find joy and purpose in creating again.

With Love,

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