I visited the idyllic setting of the Pacific Northwest for the first time last year when I contributed to a writing retreat in the San Juan Islands. I felt like we were gathered on the page of a coffee table book, and I was quickly enchanted not only with the environment—I mean, those trees! That fog! Those coffee shops!—but with the entire creative experience in which I was submerged: artists, music, writing, mountains, poetry, yoga studios, quirky little shops that sold way cooler stuff than anything I’d ever seen in my town. The air felt thick with creative inspiration.
I bought hammered metal earrings, found crystals for my kids, tasted my first whiskey, watched for whales, experimented with poetry and took pictures of a landscape I dreamed of waking up to every morning. And somewhere between planting that first Hunter boot off the plane in Seattle and boarding it again to return home, I convinced myself that these were two completely different worlds. That the feeling I got from a weekend writing retreat on a storybook island far away was a creative experience I could temporarily taste but had to return—like leaving the slopes and turning in my rented skis—when I was finished and headed back to the reality of buttering toast in the kitchen of my subdivision home where my writing view consists of a basketball hoop in a driveway and a wilted gardenia bush that hardly ever blooms.
Once home, I reconsidered everything. For a second, I thought I belonged somewhere else, was meant to BE someone else. I told myself that I’d be far more creative, feel more alive, dive deeper into that wild and precious life I was supposed to be living up to if I just…had a different life.
Like if I made pottery in Arizona. Or lived in a beach hut in Brazil. Homeschooled my kids while we trekked across the country in an Airstream. Lived in the mountains. Quit shaving my legs. Traveled more. Had more alone time. Didn’t have kids. Had a different husband. Took a different career route.
See where I was going? Down the rabbit hole of creative disillusionment, the repelling force to acceptance and gratitude, the true sources of creative satisfaction. And like alcohol and drugs and pornography, seeking creative surges and wild-and-precious-life highs and equating them with a life outside the one we already have is a slippery slope. Because one day that potter in Arizona is going to wake up uninspired and that mom in the Airstream parked in the mountains is going to feel bored and tired and lonely. That’s life.
This past weekend, I hosted another writing retreat with my friend Claire, in Ojai, California. And yeah, for a tiny second, I felt it again—outside the Deer Lodge, three days removed from the chaotic ordinariness of my reality, four quiet writing sessions behind us, artsy hippies crossing our path, toting their yoga mats. “If I had this life, I could…”
But I know better. Creative satisfaction, contentment—it comes from in, in, in not out, out, out. And all these people? Writing poetry in the San Juan Islands, scurrying to auditions in the streets of New York City, sipping whiskey from the bar stools at the Deer Lodge in Ojai, sweeping driveways in subdivisions in Southwest Florida—we’re the same, same, same. Love, heartbreak, insecurities, wants, fears, connection, hopes. Our sources of inspiration are our stories.
This weekend we wrote and shared, dreamed and challenged. A speech writer, a magazine editor, a stay-at-home mom, a business owner, a single woman, a married woman, one with difficult childhood memories, one with dreamy childhood memories, a city dweller, a country dweller, high-profile, low-profile, introvert, extrovert, writes a lot, writes a little—but all the same. Searching for more ways to find fulfillment, acceptance and creative inspiration not in a different life, but in the wild and precious ones we already have.
I buttered toast again this morning. French-braided hair, flipped through new catalogues, entered a few school events in my phone calendar. It’s raining now and from my office window, I can see puddles swelling around the basketball hoop in our driveway. And I feel fully creative, inspired and grateful for this simple life that is mine. But I still want to make pottery.
You know what’s funny? That suburban mom life is exactly the “different life” I dreamed of & thought would re-spark my creativity when I was childless and working thousand-hour weeks. And now I’m reading this and I’m like, hey, a writing retreat might be a good idea…need to break out of the suburban mom life for a bit. Ha! 🙂 I really love this post, especially: “Creative satisfaction, contentment – it comes from in, in, in not out, out, out.” Thanks for sharing.
Kelle, I fell in love with your honest gut wrenching writing in Bloom and continue to love the honesty and beauty in your writing. Going to school to be a special educator I often see so many limits be put on children. So it brings me so much happiness to know their moms like you who say there are no limits to what you can do, regardless of a child’s diagnosis. As a Seattle native I often dream of a creative and peaceful life in somewhere like Florida so thank you for bringing things full circle 🙂
Oh, yes. This post spoke directly to my heart and is a good reminder for me and my creative side. It’s great to be inspired by places + people, but it’s what’s in us that truly matters. Thank you for sharing your words + your life like you do. XO
Such an interesting post. I always read, but was moved to comment this time because – yes – exactly this. I often think that the key to greater creativity is to BE someone else, living a different life. But you’re so right, it probably isn’t. Thank you for the reminder to try to find something creative right here and now, amidst the emails and the washing up and the laundry.
This is a lesson I keep learning … over and over. I guess it will last my whole life. It’s so easy to think your life would be better if it was ______ or you had _____. I slip so easily into that trap.
But you’re so right about it being the same for everyone. Those times I wish I had a houseful of children, there’s some mom who envies the spontaneity and quiet I have with just one. Every time I get annoyed with my husband and think back wistfully to my single-girl apartment, there’s someone who wishes to not be alone.
It COULD be better to have a different life, but think of how much you’d miss.
“The grass is always greener” … it’s a saying for a reason. But I keep learning that it’s more important to notice and appreciate what’s on your side of the fence.
Great reminder, Kelly! Sometimes it’s hard in the trenches of everyday not to think of how easy life would be if I could just travel or have my life before kids or live somewhere more exciting…but you’re so right- contentment doesn’t come from “if I had another life…”. 🙂
That feeling you describe in the PNW – that’s the same feeling I get when I come to Naples. And yet, the juiciest parts of my life are right here in the upper midwest. Thanks for the reminder – same, same, same! I needed that today.
“Our sources of inspiration are our stories.” A million times yes.
Well, this was everything for me today. Thank you for the reminder. After too much virtual Instagram travel, I can start to feel a lack in my own life, like maybe I need a more exotic life to be inspired creatively. And when I start wanting to be that mom with the airstream homeschooling across America, I know it’s time to unplug and focus on my own amazing life, however small or mundane it can feel.
Thank you for this. Such a good perspective.
Well said. Just today, I am putting one foot in front of the other and doing one thing at a time to battle resentment. Resentment that comes from where????? Who knows today. But it’s getting the boot and being replaced by contentment and gratitude.
And I’ve made pottery. It’s hard and messy. But the messy is the best part. Just don’t look at what everyone else makes.
As I tell my children, get over it and grow where you are planted.
Reading today’s blog made me think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz after her great adventure…”there’s no place like home”. I used to feel restless all the time and looking for the next “high”, the next mountaintop to climb or the next fantasy which I was convinced was all waiting for me somewhere out there. Everything changed when my husband suddenly died. I had taken my life for granted. The daily “grind” was something I was desperate to escape from. Fantasies of romantic affairs, exotic escapes, signing up for this or that, bonding with girlfriends, jetting off at the drop of a hat…anything but my daily routine. When my husband suddenly died my world and life as I knew it, was gone forever. Looking back I would give anything to have appreciated him more, to do more things together without putting him on the back burner since my son became the main focus of my life. I can’t bring him back and God knows I loved him with all my heart but why did I not see the forest for the trees? I would do it all differently if I had the chance and realize that everything I really needed to be happy and content was in front of me all the time.
Powerful. I needed this. Thank you for sharing
Hi! Don’t discount the idea of a change of scenery. I spent the last twelve years of my life living and working in the tropics of Australia, but often craved the cool air, crashing waves and vast green hills of Tasmania. So one day, my husband and kids and I made a decision – we moved here to tassie. We weren’t unhappy where we were, but we are SO much happier where we are now. There’s a lot to be said for a cosy fire, new friends to be found, new lands to explore and adventures to be had. I would recommend a cool-change to anyone! X
This. This post. Wow. It brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat.
Kelle, you are such a gift. I wish you had been sharing your wisdom 32 years ago when I was experiencing the same inner struggle. You have most likely saved marriages with your words today. Thank you for the reminder that we are more alike than different! You have such a precious family, and they are so lucky to live within the light of your love! Thank you for sharing.
Girl, you are preaching to the choir!! Earlier tonight I just added to my ever-growing bucket list “Go on an all-woman writing retreat” because in my mind it will fill me with all the inspiration I need to write that one completely great piece. I, for some reason think I can’t do it during my every day life. It’s not “perfect” enough. Yet, what I really need to do is sit and write every day. Every day every day.
We had a saying in the 1990s: There is no place better than “here”. When you leave “here” to go “there”, “there” becomes “here”.
I completely understand your post, living as I do here in lowbrow, dollar-store, strip-mall, no Trader Joe’s/No Whole Foods (and me with these food allergies!), service jobs only, older, aging demographic, not my personal political understanding, low higher education opportunities, very “STEM” oriented, and in the majority, high-retirement/tourist/snowbird, “happyhappyhappy” community and I am wonder what the hell I am doing here. Well, I know why I am here: because my beloved spouse’s job is here and he is lucky to have one. So everyday, I have to find a way to survive socially, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, and mentally in a community that seems designed to crush every lack of individuality and intelligence and creativity and all I personally have to offer because I do not fit in. I used to try, but it caused me more anquish than being disliked and ignored (read: silenced), so I stopped trying. If I am going to be disliked, ignored, and belitted, better it be so for who I am, not whom I’m not.
Remembering to NEVER treat others as they treat me if they are mean is a very, very big part of my consciousness. Remembering to be appreciative of those who treat me with the same respect and kindness that I show them is a big part of my consciousness. Remembering to never assume someone how someone will treat me or judge before it happens–and, like Job, girding up my loins when before I leave my own home–is a very big part of my consciousness. Remembering how to respond when someone is not respectful in kind is a VERY BIG part of my consciousness—and yes, it does happen. And yes, I do fail sometimes to be kind and non-judgmental in return, but like the monks on the hill, “I fall down and get up again, fall down and get up again, fall down and get up again”.
The Buddha says: “thank your enemies” and I do. Because without them, I would not have this consciousness–there would be no need. In my life, there would only be the assumption that everyone is just like me, and I have been spared that particular mythology.
I read a line by the American Outsider folk-artist, the late Reverend Howard Finster many years ago that helped put things in perspective for me: “It is better to be alone than to live in the self-created hell of another” and I realized that every single one of us, no matter where we are: “here” or “there” is dealing with something. So, ti brought me back to the “here” or “there” circular argument. And your column and the comments of several of your readers show that many us are aware of this experience and all of us are learning and growing and creating and coping and adapting and expressing in our own personal moments and experiences in our own personal “heres”. And really: what is more real and artistic and beautiful than that: being fully alive no matter the hand we’ve been dealt or have chosen to deal ourselves, no matter how “un-there” it is? Be Well~
I really love this. Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. “What is more real and beautiful than that: being fully alive.” Yes, yes, yes.
What a perfect post – Grateful for the little things in life, for these are the big things 🙂
Nat Lewis
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My husband and I often say “if we could just LIVE in Door County”. We spend much time there in the six months of late spring/summer/early fall. But then the campground where we have our trailer closes for the season, and we spend the six “off” months lamenting about how much better life would be if we could just live there all year long. Life seems perfect during our weekends there. We call it “Door County Love”. We hardly ever fight there, have few worries, etc.
But in reality I know that what you wrote today would be true for us. If we lived there year-round, life wouldn’t be a big dream. And I’m trying to institute something this winter called “Milwaukee Love”. For starters, we have decided that one weekend a month, we will knock ourselves out in the prior week so that for that weekend, we can live like we’re camping. NO housework, no plans, just fly where the wind takes us. The first one was heavenly. Now to just stick to the plan!
I love your writing and I love this post. Very inspiring.
This makes me laugh, because I live in the PNW. It’s everything you describe — but I’m still bored out of my mind most days because I’m not off exploring those cozy beach locales or the art and creativity in my own city. I mean, we have awesomely quirky neighbors and I do get awfully good coffee with no effort whatsoever. But 99% of the time I’m in my living room with my toddler or living through my computer screen work while he naps, and I wish for “there” often. Usually my “there” has more to do with time and energy than place (because I think you covered that the PNW is incredible) — but this is a good reminder to us all, I think.
Thank you for this post. You put words to what I often feel. When I’m in a rut I tend to slide down that slope, and it never ends well. Well said!
Love, love San Juan Islands!
You make me want to be a writer! Your words inspire. Keep writing, because you’ll continue to inspire!