Inspiration

I find myself drowning in inspiration, yet lacking for outlets. I hear people say they are uninspired, or that they have no time for their art. There’s a general perception that inspiration is something that should descend upon us, a gift from the universe. That we should be granted the time to act upon that inspiration. It seems to me that the successful artists I know are some of the busiest people around. They have to be. Our world only very rarely supports an artist. So you have to be doing the jobs that pay the bills, put food on the table. You have to be networking, researching, investigating.  All of the time. You have to be looking for funding and building an audience – be it one who sits in a theater or who sits in a chair to read/listen/examine what you do.  Somewhere in there you have to make time to actually create this art that you are in such a frenzy to support. If you can’t summon up inspiration when you have managed to carve out the time to act upon it you are doomed.

Why do we think inspiration should be bestowed? How strangely egotistical. To think that the universe will pick us out and open our eyes. I’m inspired by the people I know who keep with them a recorder, a notebook, scraps of receipts, anything at all. Who are open to what is around them at all times, be it the way the light catches on a window, the hissed discussion going on behind you, or a snippet of music that takes you to another time.

I used to think being open to inspiration meant being ever-present, being truly in the moment. Lately it feels more like being just outside of any moment. It makes you a permanent observer. Sometimes even in your own life.

I say all of this for myself, not aimed at anyone else. Because I realized I’m looking at a long open summer. I think of summer as a time to lazily work. I picture sitting in the sun writing, reading source material for things I want to choreograph. I think that all of this free time will finally let my creativity flourish. But it rarely works that way. Usually it just involves sitting in the sun, which is lovely but is never going to produce a poem or a piece. Summer is my hibernation. Its when the germs of ideas might be planted, but rarely ever grow to fruition. Winter is when I produce. When I’m so busy I can’t see which way is up and I tread water and I create because if I don’t I’m going to go out of my mind.

It seems there should be some place in between. And there is. I simply have to want it badly enough. I carve out the time when things are hectic. I simply have to learn how to carve the time out when there is nothing but time, when its so easy to say “tomorrow”.

This is part of that process. I don’t expect anyone to read these. They are a way to push myself back into creating. To remind myself that when there’s no studio space, no theater, no bodies to work with that I can and should go back to my other love. I’ve let my writing go and it has nothing whatsoever to do with time. It has everything to do with fear. I’m proven as a dancer and choreographer. I have a million ways I can improve, obviously, but I know that I am capable of that improvement. Writing is treacherous. I’ve never trusted the compliments I’ve received. I don’t have the security that it takes to jump off the cliff.

I’m hoping to use this summer to at least climb back out on the ledge and catch the view.