All tangled up

I was struck to cold immobility by a comment Brené Brown made in conversation with Oprah: “Unexpressed creativity is not benign.”

After a moment I recovered movement and replayed the clip; indeed, to my horror, I’d heard correctly: “Unexpressed creativity is not benign. In fact, it metastasizes.”

Sh**.

So much in trouble. (And oh, how I hate to be "in trouble"!)

As a little girl, I never wanted to be a singer or movie star; I dreamed of and worked towards being an artist. Everything else looked boring or difficult. Now, after years of non-artistic endeavor, I've found that being a nurse, working on research or policy is actually pretty interesting. And important. And rewarding.

A note here – early and middle adulthood is all about developing a career, building and making a home, having and raising kids – it is pretty distracting. I have continued to read, but my creativity outlet has dwindled.

I have known for years (maybe decades but that’s my inside voice) that I should (I need) find that outlet. Without descending into whining, it’s been very hard to find. I haven’t had much time to practice, so when projects have been less than stellar, that’s been another excuse – it “doesn’t look good”.

I dabble in projects here and there by building a house or planning an event, and at other times tell myself that being an appreciator of beauty in all its forms is pretty much being creative in the flesh. (Insert rude sound here). Nope. It’s not really a substitute.

A friend of a friend is staying with us in a month. She sent me some links to her blog (to be real we need to have an online presence?)… and I found something pretty darn interesting for me. Zentangles. A type of codified doodling...

I’m trying to do one every couple of days to learn the patterns. I have some projects in mind but I’m the student for now.

Here’s today's:

I have a small sense of a gentle spring rain misting down...