One day I opened the door to a package delivery man who asked me during our brief conversation, “Are you a writer? An artist?” For a long time after he left, I wondered why he asked me that particular question, that question that I all too often ask myself.
In the end, I surmised that he probably asked because of either my style of dress or because I was home in the middle of the day. But that doesn’t answer my own internal question.
This time of year as the ground begins to thaw and the flowers begin to bud and people start to come out of their often self-imposed winter hibernation, I find that I tend to wonder where I’m going this new year. Forward? Backward? Or will this be a lateral year?
We’ll see.
This past month I’ve been posting less and reading less and hibernating, too. But as the weather begins to warm up and everything starts to turn green, I still find myself questioning what makes someone a writer or an artist besides creative production. And if during my dormant periods, I still can claim the title.
Absolutely you are an artist/writer (or as I’ve taken to terming it now: a maker) in your hibernation and down time. If you didn’t have that time you wouldn’t be able to be active or productive.
I think chosing to slow and to hibernate when the time/season is right is another form of undermining the cc (ha, consumer culture and credit card have same abbreviations!). We are pushed to think/do/act all the time but really we need to pause/relax/breathe just as much or our actions mean nothing because they are just motions.
I’m waxing poetic. I really wanted to just say that yeah, you are a maker all the time and what makes you that is the way you live and the way you think as well as the way you act.
Lauren Levato
arts editor – PISTIL