Today I picked up some magazines and a book from Dad's bookshelf. That's at least what I call it, even if Mum rearranged it a little. It's still 'Dad themed' books - photography, yoga, surfing, and so on - just a bit better organised. I like to thumb through some inspirational material and learn a few things over a coffee in the morning.
I don't feel inspired to create much at the moment. It feels a little pointless if I can't share it with Dad. He was always so proud of me for whatever I did and he was so interested in photography that he would talk to me about it all the time. I would roll my eyes each time he asked if I shot in RAW or whether I used eye autofocus. The sicker he got, the more forgetful he became. I would marvel at him persisting taking photos even as he was dying - in the last two weeks, his photographs were terrible, but he'd still snap away.
Perhaps my brain is just a little overwrought. Grief is stressful. Perhaps one doesn't have room for creativity when one is processing death. Perhaps I can't see any meaning in creativity when I know I'm going to die. This isn't meant to be maudlin, or self pitying, but a fact.
Talking to a guy I met online got me thinking. Cy is travelling in a Land Rover from Hong Kong to Europe and Africa. He had a corporate job and left it to go travelling, then quit entirely. He's a great photographer and has taken some beautiful photos on his travels. He lacks confidence, like I do, but we agreed that perhaps creativity isn't about what people think of your work, but the process of doing creativity. The outcome doesn't always matter. We simply have a desire to create that can't be restrained.
For him, it was going down a rabbit hole of teaching himself a skill - throwing himself all into it. This prevented him from starting because he knows how time consuming it is, and he knows that he'll spend all that time on it and then get bored and move onto the next thing. I feel similiarly - and I'm twenty years older than him, I laughed, and thus have twenty years more rabbit holes under my belt. The thought of spending time learning something in order to create something beautiful paralyses me. It's why I haven't signed up for the hand pottery classes I have been interested in for the last two years. If I invest all this time into this skill, and then get bored and moved onto the next thing, what then was the point?
And so I procrastinate, which is equally a waste of time. It's my brain avoiding the process. But as I said to Cy, I know there's meaning in the process. We are alive, thus we create - we are creators. This helps us understand the world. We find joy in creating something we think is beautiful, from a hand made figurine to a garden to a photograph to a short story. Do we just put that to one side because it's too hard?
What if I don't exercise my creativity muscles? Do I lost the art, so to speak? Would I be happy without creating? Do I make do with small acts of creation - a garden, a meal, a beautiful home?
Perhaps I'm just overthinking it.
Maybe I have to start small, but be persistant. What if I do what Patti Smith did for her Book of Days, by just taking a photo every day for 365 days? By doing so, I could practice my photography skills, and I'd have a record of my year, at least. Maybe it starts with small intentions - committments to some kinds of creative process, however small, whatever the outcome.
Because these feelings of ennui will not do.
To find meaning, I think I have to create my own meaning.
I am beginning to realise that these questions and conversations about creativity is really about transition - it's about navigating my grief, questioning my purpose, and finding a way forward. However challenging, I'm leaning into this fertile ground, knowing that it is possible to find joy and purpose in creating again.
With Love,
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It's still VERY early on in your grief process. Here I am, starting the 5th year. Doing the filing of posts even just from 2022 emphasized just how hard it was for me to function. Just this year, and part of last year, did I really resume my gardening.
It will come back, when you are ready.
me me me me .... grateful that you told us how hard it is to go on. Why do I forget that? "Keep on keeping on," my mom says. "We can't dwell on these things."Thank you @goldenoakfarm and @riverflows for sharing the sense of loss, the impact of burying a loved one. Sorry to have gone on about *
But even she slowed down a lot after all those tombstones went up....
If course it's also about you, it's about all of us - grief is what unites us.
Oops, that comment above got truncated. "Sorry for going on about ME," I was saying...
Your posts and comments remind me that I need to hang out here more often!!!
(And just keep reminding myself not to make it all about me.)
"How hard it was for me to function" after the loss of a loved one -
Maybe if I'd found a therapist, I'd have been "validated" (excused?) for shutting down.
Two sisters, and our father, 2021, 2022, 2023, all in a row.
The cemetery with the granite slabs somehow reminds me of the dinner table.
Four of us down. Three of us left. All those empty places at Mom's epic dining room table (oval, with many "leaves" for expansion, quarter-sawn oak, aka "tiger" oak).
"It's getting crowded here,"
my only remaining sister said as she and Mom and I stood there in the cemetery, looking at those shiny granite slabs -
Oh gosh. That's so sad. I'm so sorry for your losses and the trauma you carry must be quite hard to navigate. Much love to you and thanks for you empathy.
Five years. Goodness. You know, my Mum is at that early stage of course and is far less functional than me. Widow brain. Can't be bothered exercising. She's very self aware and I can't force her but I feel so sad for her.
Self care wasn't on the menu for years. I was mostly just trying to get the house built and keep the farm going. It wasn't until last year I started doing exercise class and this year for PT and exercise class. I'm still not doing really well with self care, but it's better. But 5 years now...
My grandfathers were both very much into photography, especially my mum’s dad, the maternal grandfather, Jack. In many ways I inherited his skills and passions for a lot of things, photography and computers. He died of cancer, a little ahead of his time and I can recall how that hit me hard at the time.
I think you carry your Grandfathers spark - that's the idea, right? It's what I feel a kind of responsibility to do.
You’re absolutely spot on. We carry our ancestors in our hearts and minds.
Get your hands on "Camera Lucida" by Roland Barthes. Its probably (even if it wasn't exactly) the same thing that was running through his head in those last days.
It is a beautiful, poignant book about photography. Short, but very dense.
Just ordered. Thanks. I read Barthes at uni but I can't recall if I read this one - perhaps at 21 it was not something I'd identify with as much as now.
I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for sharing that, its a very good description
I don't think learning anythng creative is a waste if others can enjoy or utilize what you create, to inlcude yourself.
My condolences for the loss of your father.
Yeah I don't think it's a waste, I FEEL it's a waste, which is connected to sadness.
I understand you perfectly, because I also experienced the death of my parents and it happened 3 and 5 years ago. Your condition is normal now. Don't force yourself to do what you don't want to do. Before, I liked to create something with my hands, then I liked to grow something in the garden, but after the death of my parents I became a completely different person... Now my greatest joy is traveling and reflection.. We flow in the process of life, and each time we discover something new in ourselves! We will never be the same again. I say this: the death of my parents divided my life into "before" and "after"... But life is beautiful even when tears are flowing down my cheeks...