Have you had the experience of not knowing what you are doing and something just leads you….it feels like curiosity and there’s no real decision to be taken, you are just going to try this creative thing and because the feeling is curiosity – there’s a confidence there that comes with experimenting, perhaps a freedom.
The only thing about this way of doing things is that it operates from a different way of knowing.
So when someone says to you– what made you want to organize a Yuletide Market in your garden with Charlotte— there isn’t a “good reason”. Well not the kind of strategic thinking that leads other decisions or that you used to employ in other times in your career, long long ago.
This is the part of life ( and more when you focus on it full time) that starts with a conversation with someone who also understands and can see possibility past what is visibly in front of them ( for example the too narrow paths or uneven walkways) and can see what is possible, just as you can.
When you believe that life is lived to its fullest potential in the small moments, the simple moments, the time spent connecting with people you hold dear, the making of things or the following the what if’s, your curiosity, the constant learning and building on what you know to be true to you…you end up here.
Moving tables, putting up a tent, making details in small corners of your garden so that the people who come to visit can experience the magic and delight of the garden you live in.
The garden didn’t start like this….there was no master plan devised in someone else’s mind to be made possible through the hard work of other expert hands.
No- this is a garden that has evolved as our family has evolved.
A lot is being asked of this garden on a city lot.
When everyone is finished setting up: the borrowed fire, the tent, more lights, the anti-slip things on the worn stairs, the new purpose built tables, I found myself standing in the middle of it all alone, on a still night with Lilly by my side.
The stage is set for all the firsts….
- The first time someone has shared their poetry,
- the first time someone has shared her knitting for sale,
- the first time someone has attended a market as a vendor,
- the first time someone has sung in public after open mic nights,
- the first time someone has made soup for people to sit down at her table before the event -to share it with all the hardworking entrepreneurs who have taken a chance on our vision,
- the first time someone has been in my garden,
- the first time someone has made something with their own hands and now they are showing it for the very first time.
They are about to have the feeling that when you create art and share it in the world, it is no longer solely yours.
It becomes something to someone else– it speaks to them in some way that you may never know.
It becomes part of someone else’s story.
The cyanotype you make with the sun becomes the card someone sends to their friend carrying the words that only the two of them will know and it might be helpful, or life changing or affirming of not being alone in the world.
I opened up my well used journal to see the table placements and check my notes ( and list) and came across a thing I wrote on a blank page- so it stood out as I was searching for the practical page.
“Find connection through creativity by gathering experiences that are meaningful”.
And then it dawned on me that I was making something, creating something that is so inline with what I do that it made sense.
It made sense that I didn’t question it….because the creative part knew all along….and the part of my brain I use to “think” just needed to catch up.
What are you doing in your creative life that you don’t know why yet…
In the videos below is further evidence of starting something…growing vegetables and then watching them go to seed, making a cyanotype and then wondering if there is more…