Centering creativity

I’ve been known to frequent career paths that require far too much of my time lol. No stranger to late nights and early mornings, I actually used to pride myself on being the person who will go above and beyond to carry the project to the finish line, singlehandedly, on my back, while others sleep, if I have to. That’s all done now and lately I’ve found myself in the sweet spot where I say yes and no in about equal measure. I can’t take all the credit for this - my polycystic ovaries literally said if you don’t take a break we may destroy you. So I took a break.

I used that time to do nothing at all, not because I didn’t want to. I would open the laptop and prepare to write but my mind was like an endless worry loop of health anxiety so nothing useful came out. The closest I got to productivity was spending more time on a childhood hobby of mine - stargazing, when I couldn’t sleep or felt myself spiralling into these thought loops and starting to panic, finding it hard to catch my breath, I’d just go to my bedroom window and try to identify different asterisms, find whatever constellations were visible in that small slice of sky, look for the teapot of Sagittarius and Milky Way yawning through and beyond it.

North Star Astronomy Blog

Now stargazing turned out to be the perfect mental break activity for me.

1. I’m a total space nerd

2. My community is rural enough where I still get a almost great view of the night sky

3. In order to stargaze properly you have to wait for about 20 minutes while your eyes get used to the dark which was a great time to slow my breathing and ground myself in the cool night air

4. I happened to be picking stargazing back up during the Perseids meteor shower so there was a lot happening in the sky to distract me

The Perseids happen in late July, early August yearly as the comet Swift-Tuttle passes near earth on its orbit around the sun leaving a trail of debris in its wake (tail). This debris falls to earth appearing to emanate roughly from the constellation Perseus, hence Perseids.

Three Perseid Nights | Image Credit & Copyright: Balint Lengyel | NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Anyway, I was having so much fun stargazing - downloading apps, checking websites for what’s happening in the northern sky, reading about the constellations that I wondered, why don’t I do more things like this? I mean, we’re in a pandemic, I work from home, I definitely have the time for more joy, fulfillment, excitement, hobbies - so what am I filling that time with?

MY PHONE.

Of course. I decided to track my screen time and found I was spending upwards of 8 hours staring at my phone each day - watching shows (some great ones like Star Trek Discovery and His Dark Materials), endlessly scrolling Twitter and even googling random things. The eight hours was really surprising to me because if you’d asked me, I’d have probably said 4 hours max - even as I binged entire seasons in one sitting.

Anyway, I decided to use at least 3 quarters of that time each day to be creative, defining creativity very loosely. It could be spending time on Pinterest working on my design board, building and decorating houses in Sims 4 or something more obvious like writing or painting. I found that regardless of the activity I felt less anxious and more in control of my time rather than like I was being swept along by it. And in a period in my life where I felt completely out of control regarding my body, that was incredibly healing for me.

Framed by Trees: A Window to the Galaxy | Image Credit & Copyright: Will Godward | NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

It’s been a little over a month now and it’s going great. Even on busy days I find time to slow down, mess around in Canva, write bad poetry, engage with the creative work of others, work on this website (my favourite thing to do). Centering creativity has helped me find my center in an incredibly stressful year, maybe it could help you.

CURRENT CREATIVE ACTIVITIES

1. Web design! :)

2. Journaling

3. Drawing asterisms and learning about telescopes. (RIP Arecibo Observatory)

4. Singing

5. Daydreaming

6. Reading - just finished Temporary by Hilary Leichter and deciding between Dear Senthuran by Akwaeke Emezi and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

And if you want a stargazing buddy - I’m your guy! Let’s talk about the night sky.