The Joy of Rediscovering: An Unexpected Gift During These Rotten Times

I am like everyone else right now: the only good thing about the pandemic is not having to figure out my daily outfit as I am pretty much wearing the same thing week after week. Showering, like putting on a bra, has become completely optional, and when I do leave the house wearing trousers with buttons, I vaguely remember what it was once like to be a glamorous person who wore shoes, other than house slippers, around town. Like many, I have experienced a decrease in motivation to start certain activities that were once enjoyable prior to the lockdown, like yard work, and I have found it harder to focus on tasks that require my undivided attention. 

These weeks and months of self quarantine (although who’s even counting now?) have had me reflecting in all sorts of ways about the busyness of my pre-quarantine life. Like a decorator stripping back layers of wallpaper to reveal the base layer, confinement to my home has had a similar effect, as it has forced me to acknowledge what’s really important in my life. In scraping away, I found something surprising.

Girl on Fire

When I met my husband in college, one of his favorite memories involved coming to my dorm room late at night to find me hunched over a bucket on the floor, twisting beans into silk fabric. I would sit for hours meticulously tying knots around legumes, in hopes that an intricate pattern would be created once I dipped the garment in dye. He recalled that my room looked like the laboratory of a mad scientist, but with art supplies. I fondly remember how creative I was. 

Unfortunately, my project turned out horribly, and in disillusionment, I changed my course of study. However, years later I would blissfully think back to that time of my life when artistic ideas flowed from me like water from a hose. Creatively, I was a “girl on fire.”

Flow State

For those of you who have found yourself engrossed in something so enjoyable that you have lost track of time and place, you can relate to the space to which I am referring - your mind works hard, but not too hard, and you feel alive. According to positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, what you experience in that moment is known as flow state, defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” Flow experiences can be as unique as the individual, but they elicit the same feelings of being in a highly focused mental state.

As a young child, my son would sit at the coffee table for hours making lists of all the things that fascinated him. Numbering line after line on blank pieces of paper, he would record his greatest football (soccer) teams, favorite animals, tallest buildings, etc. My daughter does this with magazine pictures that she collages into works of art. When I observed my children in their element, I knew exactly what they were experiencing - a perfect intersection where creativity met intellectual interest. 

However, for many years I let my artistic creativity become neglected, as it was the first thing I let go of in my busy schedule. Because many “important” things competed for my attention, it often seemed frivolous and impractical to spend time being artistic doing “art for art’s sake.” For well over a decade I sensed an unexplainable discontentment that was growing inside, but I didn’t know that my artistic inactivity was the cause.

Eureka! I found it.

When I left the big box gym to become an independent fitness contractor, I begrudgingly forced myself to create a website and start writing only because I thought it was the wise thing to do for my business. Little did I know this small activity of writing and drawing would gradually start to awaken the same flow state that I had experienced twenty-five years ago in my dorm room. Ideas started to beget more ideas and my joy in life increased.

Recently I shared with a friend how drawing and writing for this amateur website had led me to rediscover my artistic creativity. Coincidentally, he had just read research about how satisfying, and often important it is for our well-being to be engaged in an activity that we once loved to do as a child, because of how it enriches our human existence. He encouraged me that this activity need not be attached to my profession (I quite love my job as a personal trainer), nor be required to fit logically toward my goals, and there doesn’t need to be any reason for doing it for monetary gain. It was to be done simply because it added delight and fulfillment to life.

Unabashedly, I began writing and creating art JUST FOR ME. Slowly, the extra space that my wandering brain had used in being discontent, frolicking in self pity, and ruminating over past disappointments, was now being replaced with artistic images that would flood my mind. Instead of my mind naturally gravitating towards the negative, it now had interesting ideas to think about. Even in these times of Covid, with its fear and unrelenting boredom, there became more moments of joy in my day because I was creating.

My journey with creativity during lockdown is teaching me that no matter how silly or inconsequential you deem a particular activity to be, if you enjoy doing it, it is worth doing.  Not one moment should be wasted in wrestling with the false belief that the importance of your endeavor should be based upon the amount of people who notice your talent or a logical goal that you are reaching. It is worthy for no other reason than it makes you feel alive.

For some, this global pandemic has caused an unwelcome barrier preventing flow in this moment, which is completely understandable. Hopefully that feeling will pass once life returns to a more normal way of living. But if there is anything that you remember fondly from yesteryear that stirred your soul, may you have the courage to revisit it. Like me, you might find that it adds a rich color to your life, especially on those gray days, as an unexpected gift that you never again want to live without.

The Ring

by Julie Hamilton

Creativity is a radiant ring that I once used to wear.

Everything looked more beautiful as it sparkled on my hand.

One day I left it in the drawer as it had become too cumbersome.

The longer I chose to not put it on, the easier it was to leave off, until I completely forgot about it.

Time passed, and I barely could recognize my calloused and weary hand.

I knew something was missing.

Remembering my youth, I opened the drawer and pulled out the ring.

I nervously placed it on my finger and was surprised to see it still fit.

Its luster was still brilliantly shining.

Over time I became more comfortable carrying its weight.

Some days it took more effort to wear.

Everything looked more beautiful as it sparkled on my hand.

I decided I would never let it stay buried in my drawer again.

For it was far too precious.