Hey All – Sarah here for our semi-regular touch-base! Has it really been three weeks since we last talked?? Ughhh. I blame February. It just seemed to evaporate! It’s crunch time here with less than five months left in India. I’ve still got a few places to check off my India bucket list and there is oh-so-much packing to do (not thinking about that yet). On Nick’s India bucket list was a trip to Rishikesh (known for yoga and adventure sports) to do some white water kayaking on the Ganges.
He was supposed to go in December but then the sprinkler issue happened and I begged him to stay and help me deal with it in case things went sideways. Long story short, he was rebooked for a long weekend in February. You’ll be pleased to know that he did not kill himself.
Nia and I wanted nothing to do with scary kayaking, so we curated our own vacation. We decided on the beach–Goa, specifically–because Nia had been complaining that we hadn’t been to the beach in forever and I hadn’t been to this popular destination yet. And so it was decided! It ended up being a great choice.
To add to the fun, we joined up with two other Mom-daughter pairs and spent four days frolicking in the ocean and feasting on delicious seafood. I’m honestly not much of a beach person (I inevitably burn no matter how much sunscreen I put on and I get bored easily) but liked it better than expected. Was fun to hang out with friends and it honestly just had a very nice, relaxed vibe. The total opposite of Mumbai. And Nia was so, so happy. That girl loves the ocean! Here’s 2/3rds of our lovely group!
In Other Things . . .
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this but my theme for 2022 is CREATE. In honor of that theme, I have committed to doing a creative activity each day. I can hear some of you saying, “But Sarah, you’ve always been doing creative stuff.” And I’d agree with that, to some degree. But most of it fell away during the pandemic and I knew I needed to be deliberate about bringing it back.
Remember back in August when I started blocking “Creative Time” on my calendar in the mornings to help give my days some structure when I was feeling lost? Well, the good news is that “Creative Time” has become part of my routine each morning (even expanding to the weekends now!).
After six months of committing to daily creative time, I can say with certainty that my relationship with, and connection to, my creativity feels eons different. This is easily the most committed I’ve been to artistic pursuits since high school. What made the biggest difference was when I started holding that time sacred (because I could see how important it was to my well-being and growth) and giving it priority over other things in my life.
So What Exactly Have I Been Doing During My Daily Creative Time?
Great question. Photography and blogging have definitely been happening in conjunction with traveling. Painting is also back. I’ve been trying out lots of different mediums and always seem to come back to watercolor. I enjoy the unpredictable nature of how the color moves in the water and inevitably bleeds into other areas. Sometimes it turns into a big ole mess and other times it produces something even more dynamic than I was going for, something I could never recreate.
What I love most about watercolor is that you have to work fast and commit, which leaves little time for overthinking things (something I’m very prone to with art and life in general). Watercolor is best laid down once and if you’re going to bleed other colors into the initial color(s), then that step needs to happen immediately. There’s no going over it again and again and erasing, which is what always trips me up when drawing. In fact, the properties of watercolor seem to be the ideal foil for my perfectionist tendencies.
And that leaves us with writing, which still consumes my mornings. I’ve noticed when I think about the final product–“THE BOOK”–I get so overwhelmed cataloguing all the things that need to happen to go from here to there that I simply start to shut down. You see, I’ve spent the bulk of my life focused on end-products or goals. Sarah is my name, striving is my game! :)
Writing a book is such a stretch for me though that my old methods are failing me. I cannot conceive of how I’m going to reach the goal, which inevitably paralyzes me. And proceeding without a clear plan is not something I do. The thing that really gets me with writing, and publishing for that matter, is I don’t even know what I don’t know! Can you see why this gets me worked up?
A writing pal helped me see that I needed to let go of the goal (the finished book) because it was actually impeding me from doing the thing I set out to do in the first place–write! And that reconnected me to my initial desire, which was to write for my own growth and healing. Once I remembered that, it was clear that I needed to change my focus from publishing a book to becoming someone who writes consistently.
This helped immensely. I now write every day because, as I’m learning . . . Writers write. Not just when they can fit it in. Not just when they feel inspired.
Writers write every. damn. day. No matter what.
What I know for sure is that the only way to become the writer I want to be is by plopping my butt in the chair each day and putting words on the page. Despite sounding basic, it has been working surprisingly well. I write each day until I have a minimum of 500 words down. Some days that takes 30 minutes, most days closer to 90. Since October, this simple practice has yielded over 100,000 words. Isn’t that crazy? 100,000 words!?! That’s the rough equivalent of a 300 page novel! Not all of that is book-worthy, but it’s all valuable.
I think this quote, which I said to Nick in a fit of frustration recently, best illustrates where I’m at in this moment:
“I am so irritated for bringing all this emotional turbulence upon myself. All I’d have to do is quit this stupid writing project and–BAM! JUST LIKE THAT–I’d feel good about myself again. And yet, it’s not that simple because–and here’s where it gets really weird–I don’t think I can walk away either. I am trapped in this torturous in-between place where I can’t possibly imagine going forward or abandoning ship. What have I done to myself???”
And that, folks, is where I’ll leave you for today. I hope you have a great rest of the week!
