Dedicated-Determined-Creative

(Author’s note: It is a common interview question to be asked to describe yourself in three words. My typical response was the title of this post. The balance is tipped toward creativity now, but the other traits will come in handy.)

Nestled under the bluffs that touch the sky and above the maze of underwater boulders and rocky shelves that house the fish with their swishing tails and turtles with bright green iridescent heads in The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Missouri flows the Jack’s Fork River. It was the type of place where the muses run free, scampering across my heart and kissing my brain allowing creativity to flow through me like a river of language.

At the Creative Retreat I found an answer to a question that has nagged at me since childhood. Every time I acted on the spark of a creative idea, the kind that made me say, “Yes! That’s it!” and took it all the way to a raging flame that eventually burned out after its purpose was accomplished, I always had a fear that my creativity would “run out.” What if that was the last creative idea and I had none left? But, I was acquainted with the idea that creativity was not in my brain, it came as a flash of inspiration from an external source, but I had to be open to receive it, nurture the smoldering embers and fan the flames for it to become the brightness it was destined to be. The muse visits those who are open to collaborating to create. Creativity begets creativity.

I learned that writing is first to explore and understand myself and then it’s for sharing the message with others. Writing is self-care. When I feel misunderstood, I can write to communicate what is inside, because only then is there any hope of another person truly understanding how I feel. And, maybe if my thoughts resonate, the reader also feels less alone and more understood.

I connected with new friends, all in different places on their creative journeys. The retreat allowed for free time as well. My favorite was exploring the river in a kayak as I enjoyed the view with “new eyes” as our workshop leader, Ibtisan Barakat, delighted in every fish and turtle and beautiful scene along the river, because she had the childlike excitement of seeing it for the first time. Another new friend, Ali, who was an experienced river navigator, guided the canoe to the best spots for viewing optimizing the trip.

All ventures away from reality eventually lead home and the question becomes how to I keep the magic alive? Each of us brought home a souvenir from our retreat host, a tumbled rock from the river. We were given a basket of rocks to choose from. I carefully pulled rocks out that appealed to me, mostly the reddish-purple ones, lining them up and trading them in for newer more attractive ones until I found a cream and tan colored one that was shaped like a moccasin. The moccasin reminded me of a writing exercise we had to learn to be creative with the unexpected (which I was unable to do at that moment because shoes were not important on the Hawaiian beach I was describing in my story). I rolled the rock around in my hand and the coolness and the rhythm felt right. So, I did the unexpected and put back all of the reddish-purple rocks I was considering and chose the meaningful, neutral-colored one. Now it hangs out in my outdoor office where I hear the ripple of my wet weather spring responding to the rain that has soaked into the ground and must find its way out, sharing its music with all who are along its path. The moccasin rock can inspire me daily to dedicate the time to listen for the muses to inspire the next step of expressing the story that lives within me. I am determined to finish.