Last Wednesday was the first day off in months that didn’t include chauffeur duty to a medical facility for Thing1 or Thing2. Both kids miraculously got off to school on time, and I decided to have real day off.
I kicked off the morning with some cleaning (I know, I’m definitely not right in the head) and an oil change, using the time in the waiting area to write. Then off to the grocery store, using the drive time to listen to a Udemy course for help desk managers before heading to my favorite cafe in Cambridge for a bite and another few moments of writing.
It was the most creative morning I’d had in months.
Once upon a time, creative time was carefully guarded in iron-clad morning or evening hours when the rest of the house was asleep. For the last few months, though, it has been dead last on my list .
The mayhem hasn’t really ceased with spring, but I think we’re getting better at managing it. I know most weeks, at least one of my days off (which fall in the middle of the work week for most people) will involve a drive to one medical facility or another and have started to plan for it. And, just as I’ve trained myself to stop and smell the fart jokes (rose, I mean roses) when they appear, I’m slowly training myself to grab moments of creativity and study whenever they pop up.
Daily patterns change, and our focuses adapt to new challenges. Eventually, the adapting offers the tools to help keep the creative faith. For me, that’s important because where there’s creativity there is growth. There is life, and where there’s life there’s hope.