She sketched me at 5am

My friend opens up my newsletter very very early each Thursday as part of her morning routine before heading off to a stressful job helping people all day. She is also a long time family caregiver and as a result she doesn’t have a lot of free time.

I guess that’s why I was so impressed when she sent me an email with the subject line: You told me to be creative

And in it was the above picture of me that she screenshot and this beautiful drawing below that she made.

Picking up a pencil to draw is new.

Besides this lovely gift of the drawing and this story that she gave me, something else was really happening here…

When we spend a few minutes making something instead of scrolling or saving pins for projects one day, something in us shifts.

If you have done this, you know what I am talking about— it’s powerful, meaning making and joyful.

Sometimes we surprise ourselves– we don’t even know why we do this thing, make the thing…but we follow a little spark and try. That’s ok – we don’t need to know why…that’s the point in creativity….allowing ourselves to follow a path, make a thing, be curious enough to research the question. That’s living a creative life.

That’s what leads to joy and happiness, calm and meaning.

What my friend didn’t know about me, and I had long forgotten until I saw this, is that my Dad, a full time artist after his stroke at age 53, had been drawing my sister and I for years when we were growing up.

On weekends he would ask to draw us and to sit very still -occasionally offering to take us for ice cream afterwards to say thank you for sitting still for so long.

My daughter Ilse drew my Dad in his last days while he was taking a little nap mid visit ( so tired by the cancer that he was living with)

I always admire the lines someone puts on a page and the results that they create — it is a wonderful thing.

AND

It is available to all of us.

There is no such thing as not being able to draw, or “my sister is the creative one” – as though creativity and the skills that go along side it are finite.

They are not.

If we want to draw more a certain way we can take courses, practice to deepen our skill, borrow books from the library, follow teachers on line. That will give us more confidence in creating in the style we would like to master.

What a wonderful learning journey.

But our body doesn’t care what our drawing looks like.

All the benefits for our physical and mental health of making something from nothing, of creating and making something with our hands – whether we want to share it, think it’s beautiful, or intriguing or interesting, even if we don’t know why (yet) are felt and experienced no matter what we make.

Our body doesn’t care what we make.

Our body feels the benefits WHEN we make.

Thank you to my friend for this gift – and the gift for me of knowing that what I create, write and make here is helpful, useful and inspiring in some way.

I write alone.

I write each day.

And on one of the days each week, I write to you (if you have signed up for my newsletter).

I send out my newsletter and hundreds and hundreds of people around the world open it and read it.

And I never know- what it means, if it means anything, or if it helpful in some way.

And yet, as with all of my work, I share because I know that creativity is powerful.

If we invite it to walk alongside us, most especially in hard times, it is good company. It allows us to notice Beauty in all forms.

It teaches us lessons that are available and helpful for every person no matter where they are on the path of their own creative journey.

Thank you for reading.

I wish you peace on your path,

Lise-Lotte

(my newsletter is different than getting this blog)

Here is my story about this and a few other things too…

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