In lieu of Eating the Couch

I read “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert over the weekend. Of all the profound insight and wisdom to be found in that book (and there is a lot), this is the line that I keep thinking about:

“If I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind). I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.”

Well folks, if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to the last year or so since my podcast has slowed down, this is mostly it: I’ve been eating the couch.

Sure I’ve also been reading a ton, and doing inner work, and homeschooling my kids, and going to therapy, and trying to kind of keep my house clean, but there is definitely a big part of me that is pacing restlessly in the back of my mind and every so often just starts gnawing away on whatever it can find back there.

Apparently this is AI’s version of me eating a couch. An absolutely terrifying, feral female with strangely shaped hands and extra useless legs. Probably an accurate depiction.

I think I’ve been holding my creativity hostage in an attempt to manipulate myself (and others) into getting things done that I feel like I really should have all tied up and wrapped in a pretty pink bow at this point in my life.

I’ll be creative after I come up with a system that helps me keep the house clean every day FOREVER. I’ll be creative after I have healed all of my trauma and “graduate” from therapy. I’ll be creative after my husband finishes building me a studio and I actually have SPACE to be creative in. I’ll be creative when the kids are back in public school. I’ll be creative after I get my computer situation fixed and can go back to podcasting. I’ll be creative after I’m enlightened and have actual wisdom to share with the world (this last one sounds especially laughable on paper, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a very real goal of mine).

This list sounds eerily similar to something I read in Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

Excuses are another form of pollution. From women writers, painters, dancers, and other artists, I have heard every excuse concocted since the earth cooled. “Oh I’ll get around to it one of these days.” In the meantime, she has the grinning depression. “I keep busy, yes I squeeze in my writing here and there, why I wrote two poems last year, yes, and finished one painting and part of another over the last eighteen months, yes, the house, the kids, the husband, the boyfriend, the cat, the toddler, need my consummate attention. I am going to get around to it, I don’t have the money, I don’t have the time, I can’t find the time, I can’t make the time, I can’t start until I have the finest most expensive instruments or experiences, I just don’t feel like it right now, the mood is not right yet. I just need at least a day’s worth of time to get it done, I just need to have a few days’ time to get it done. I just, just, just…”

The thing is, I think most women (or at least many of us) are conditioned to believe that our own joy is selfish unless the thing that we take pleasure in is directly benefiting others. So it’s just fine as a woman to take pleasure in things like cleaning house, child-rearing, making dinner, or even doing creative work in the service of someone other than ourselves. But taking time to write simply because I enjoy it and NOT to document the adorable antics of my kids or give preachy advice to others? Strange. Painting weird looking portraits in whatever way makes me laugh instead of creating commissioned pieces of art that people proudly hang on their wall? Silly. Prioritizing a podcast over a clean house and well-groomed kids, when that podcast doesn’t even make any money and in fact, COSTS money to produce? Sacrilege.

I’m also highly aware that the way I do things is a bit weird. Like I’m writing this rambly-shambly, twisty-turvy, stream-of-consciousness post about what? Eating a couch? What does that even mean? I’m not going to edit it for clarity or to make sure I get my point across (what point?), or even punctuation. My language-arts-teaching mother, may shudder as she reads this (Hi, Mom), and I don’t even care.

I am messy and selfish with my creativity. I don’t enjoy editing or perfecting. I don’t like too much structure and form. I don’t like creating with anyone but myself in mind—and I can be wildly easy to please, which means the end result of my creativity is often confusing and splotchy and not “good” by any particular standard. I’m not really willing to be creative in any other way any more, but sometimes I think that because I’m not “good” by any particular standard, I shouldn’t create at all and I definitely shouldn’t SHARE my messy 1st draft creations.

But you know what?

I’m going to.

I’m going to keep writing messily and selfishly and I’m going to share what I create anyway because that’s how I know when I’m done creating something. And at least it’s VIBRANTLY messy—which I think some people enjoy. At least it beats eating the couch.

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