aaahhhh yup

Still here. It's been a complicated few months and I A) haven't had much time for creative work and B) just don't feel like it on the rare occasions when surprised with spare time.

In the movie Words and Music, musician Alex Fletcher, thoroughly exasperated when reluctant lyricist Sophie Fisher claims that she just can't write on demand, cries out: "Inspiration is for amateurs!"

Sometimes I think that inspiration is the enemy of work. Or the enemy of getting work done, anyway. Inspiration comes to me while I'm driving or at work or folding laundry, but evaporates the instant I'm free to follow it. This summer and fall I've mostly just wandered off into chores or a book when the creative urge fades. Predictably, I've barely written a word, barely thought of a single story or line of poetry. No dyeing, no sewing, no drawing.

And meanwhile, I am surrounded by advice to work every day no matter what. Time with a pen fills paper with words. Waiting around for the right feeling (as deeply satisfying as it is when it arrives) doesn't accomplish anything. I know all this. Everybody knows all this.

I really loved it during those months where I was posting a blog almost every day, no matter how short or banal. The point of the exercise was to do anything. I will not have more time for art in the foreseeable future. But maybe I can get back to doing something.

However, though I haven't had time for art, I have been doing other important things, with and for actual humans. I can't really consider that a waste of time.