Time and Space

Celebrating Creativity and Connections

Tulips in bloom in our front garden

I wrote in February about my process of clearing space and reorganizing so that my workspace better reflects my current creative practice. You can revisit that post here: Making Space for Creativity.

I am happy to report that my new system is working, greater spaciousness on my desk allows my ideas and words to move around and find connections. I am in a good rhythm with my writing process.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting more on the relationship between time and space. I did a fair bit of traveling in the last month and noticed how often I think about distance in units of time. I know how many hours it takes to drive to visit each of my children in their college cities. For local destinations, I describe how a location is “about 20 minutes away” rather than tell the distance in mileage.

Our navigation systems support this focus too, noting how many minutes and hours to our destination; traffic is reported as the number of minutes we will be delayed. This was a familiar message on our recent return from Cleveland to visit Ryan and see the eclipse.

Sun projections through pinholes, watching the eclipse in Cleveland with Chad and Ryan, view of total eclipse.

Creatively, I am thinking about how space and time relate because I am celebrating that I have been working on my book for 5 years.

This feels like sort of an unusual celebration, part of me wants to shout, “Wait! What? Get on with it! How can SUCH a LONG process be cause for celebration?”

At the same time, I am grateful to reflect that the length of time is reflective of a long journey. It is not one measured in miles or minutes but one reflected in how far I have come in practicing using my voice, finding clarity in what I want to write about, and discovering the structure that will best support my project.

I am celebrating that five years ago, I first met Christianne Squires and the group of women I now meet with weekly to reflect on my writing and creative practice. Christianne’s Bookwifery classes and participating in the Light House Community provided opportunities for me to explore and share ideas that have been foundational to my book.

I am celebrating that four years ago, as we all sought to find sanctuary in our homes during the pandemic, I returned in earnest to this newsletter and to sharing and connecting through my writing. This community has helped me to share my voice and build community around creative practice. I am grateful for the relationships supported by correspondence through this newsletter.

I am celebrating that almost three years ago, I taught my first on-line offering called “Creativity as Courtship,” a class that led to the working title for my book.

I am celebrating that a little over two years ago, I taught a more in-depth, month-long course, “Courting Creativity” with weeks focused on courtship, circumambulation, conversation, and negative capability. These four topics became the four sections of my book and helped me to imagine my color wheel table of contents.

I am celebrating that a year and a half ago, I learned that Christian McEwen offered creative coaching for writers. Her encouragement and wisdom have been inspirational for my practice. From our first meeting, I noticed how she spoke of “when” not “if” as she spoke about my book. Her confidence in me and in the project increases my own confidence. (I highly recommend her books: World Enough and Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down and In Praise of Listening.)

I am celebrating that I have been meeting with my writing group for a little over a year. This group has been the single most helpful factor in really beginning to sit down and draft my chapters. It is a gift to have fresh eyes for new work and to know it will be received with care and tenderness. I am grateful for all I learn from reading their work and sharing feedback in community.

Writing a book is often described as a lonely process. As I reflect on the past 5 years, I notice how my process has included two kinds of gathering. I gather connections for support and encouragement as well as content for the book. The coaching and creative communities have been vital to helping me find form and structure to support my writing practice.

Mostly, I am grateful I can see this stretch of time as an abundance, a spaciousness, that I can appreciate all that has been able to grow in my practice in this time.

I look forward to continuing this journey and to seeing what comes next. As someone who almost always finds things take longer than I expect, I am used to being frustrated by this and self-critical of what feels like faulty planning. It is a welcome shift to reflect on the time spent on this project so far as a treasured journey, one that has allowed me to gather companions for my process.

I feel settled about this timing in the same way I feel settled and curious about seeing growth in the natural world. Things take the time they take. We can tend them in their growth, but we can’t rush it. We can savor the experiences of noticing the changes along the way.

I would love to hear from you too.

Do things sometimes take longer than you expect? How do you respond to this? Is there any place in life or creative where slowness may be an invitation to celebrate growth, community, and deepening relationship?

Thank you for reading and being a part of creative community through this newsletter.

With a grateful heart,

Kathryn

Visit to IX Art Park in Charlottesville with Kevin, grateful for his consistent and thoughtful newsletter editing.