Today, my pool opens for the spring. It's early in NY, but the pool guy tells me I'm not the first one. It will take another few days for a salt-ozoneator specialist to come and fix and piece of equipment that broke last season, and a few days after that for the water to heat up to "warm enough" to possibly swim. I do own a wetsuit, so technically, at 65 degrees, I'm set to go in. Suffice it to say, by this time next week, I should be afloat in my own backyard.
Those who know me, know I swim all year. There's just something about the water for me. On bad days, you could say it saves me. And, on good days, it energizes me and helps my creativity to flow. The many times I've been stuck on story or plot, the "unstuck" came to me underwater. I count on it, knowing that, as long as I get in the water, everything will be okay.
Where do you count on? Where does your creativity flow?
I'm solar powered. Give me some sun and I'm good to go. I keep my laptop on my dining room table. I have a big picture window to my left, and another window behind me. And I let the rays of the sun shine in across the floor and work their way to me.
ReplyDeleteOr if I need a break and the sun is out, I go for a walk. Good blog Gae, my little mermaid.
ah, the sun. The sun would inspire me too, if it didn't put me almost immediately to sleep. I crave the sun, but I sort of melt and swirl and disappear into it. But it's good math in my equation: Water + Sun = Bliss. Oh lord how I love the summer. :)
ReplyDeleteI love that one of your labels is "pineapples."
ReplyDeleteI like pineapples. They don't get enough airplay. :)
ReplyDeleteI am loving your blog. last time I thought about my recurring themes all day long. it was inspirational. and today you've given me a reason to think about getting on my (yoga) mat to reconnect to my creative spirit. creativity, like everything else, is a universal energy, but it likes to play hide & seek. the moment ego walks in the door, creativity goes and hides. so it's often when I get out of my own way, get out of my own ego, that the creativity that lives inside can and will rise up and show itself. I could go on and on about this, as I am rather obsessed with the link between creativity and consciousness, but my yoga mat is calling........
ReplyDeleteyes, yes it is. I could hear it all the way from here. It sounded a lot like, 'OHMMMMMMMM...'
ReplyDelete:)
I'm like you, Gae, a water girl. Put me by the ocean (or in a swimming pool) and my creativity just super-charges. And I find, too, that when my creative flow is sluggish, sometimes if I bring that element of water (particularly the seashore) into my fiction, it gets me inspired and moving again. It's my way of humoring myself sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog post. I'm so glad I found your blog.
I love the big water AND the sun, but both turn my brain off. I'm in some sort of zone where thought entirely ceases.
ReplyDeleteMy brain does best churning up the ideas when I am power walking... outside, walking the streets, the trees, exerting my body while relaxing my brain and it goes into this free fall...
It does it's best transferrence though, in the tub... so it's water, but on a small scale... this time, relaxed body... lets those churned thoughts tumble out and make sense... (funny than my star chart is almost completely earth and water, eh? Very fitting to the idea flow.)
I write best outdoors in the sun. With spring's flowers comes the sense that I need to be doing something new.
ReplyDeleteWalking sometimes releases me when I'm stuck,or brings forth new ideas, but the creativity flows most of all when I'm driving, a great song on the radio. I can't count the times I've pulled over on the side of the road. I can't count the thoughts and ideas I've lost.
I think driving for me has always been a symbol of freedom.
If I live to be 90, I'll still be driving, and one day I'll own a Willys. With a daisy airbrushed on the side.
makes sense, i guess, how often endorphins come into play in the creativity process (or blood flow maybe, heart pumping?). And Lisa, I can't write or think with music on to save my life. Never could. So I love that your writing comes to you when you do. Horse race, and all that. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm another music person. "Mood music" in particular is helpful. In other words, when I'm writing a certain type or piece or writing about a certain topic, if I have the right music, it's almost like I'm playing the song with my fingers as I type (I play the piano, so I guess that makes sense). For me, music and words are almost interchangeable. Music "speaks" to me.
ReplyDeleteI take my dog for a walk. It's great for clearing my head when I'm stressed or stuck. But, strangely, I get almost all my creative answers in that semi-conscious state just before sleep. Why, I ask...
ReplyDeleteHey, Gae, great blog! I've been slowly gathering ABNAers after I got cut from the last round. I loved all your voices over there and I love them out here too: Megan, Hart, Lisa, Liz, etc, etc.
Thanks, Barbara
Fun question, Gae! Great answers, too.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am stuck, the only thing that gets me unstuck is running.
ReplyDeleteBut WATER!!!!
When I am in the pool, I feel I am in my element- which I am, technically. I could spend hours in a pool.