Once upon a time, early mornings were the fuel to my creative soul. In college, you would rarely find me pulling all-nighters. The only time I did that was if there was a certain amount of fun to be had that made sleep seem an unnecessary task.
And by fun, I mean stupidity, because freedom combined with zero parental supervision made things like visiting the David Koresh compound at 1:00 am and allowing myself to be escorted around by a man claiming to be a journalist who knew where underground passages were still hidden, and showed us bullet holes in the sides of vans SEEMED LIKE AN EXCELLENT IDEA!
Only a handful of times did I pull an all-nighter to accomplish school work. Even then, I knew that when the sun went down at night, so did my brain. (Again, see the aforementioned stupidity that ruled many of my college late nights).
I was the girl who got up in the early hours of the morning, before the sun rose, and tiptoed into the library to study, or write a paper, or to simply read a book. The stillness of the mornings stimulated my mind, and gave me the fuel I needed to get through my daily classes. By my senior year of college, I was well into my English Professional Writing degree, which meant that I had at least one or two papers due every single day.
Most of those words were typed before the sun peeked above the horizon.
Even then, I knew how I worked best. It’s not much different for me today, though I admit that dragging myself from bed in the early mornings is harder than it once was. In college, I had the benefit of knowing I could lay around in the afternoons. Now I know that from 2:00-9:00, I will need to be on my game. I can’t afford to be exhausted.
But I do know when I am my creative best, and when the situation dictates that I tap into that inner creativity, I push myself out of the warm cocoon of my bed while the rest of the world sleeps.
There are so many different ways in which we creatives can tap into the best parts of ourselves. That’s the beauty of living life as a creative:
We don’t have to fit a mold.
As creatives we have an immense amount of freedom to live life as we were designed, each with a unique set of gifts that cannot be molded into a boxed set of rules. Some work better at night, whittling away the slumbering hours behind desks, easels, and sewing machine. Some, like me, feel the ideas most vivid in the mornings, after just enough sleep has given the brain a chance to rejuvenate.
Some creatives work best to music, while others need absolute silence. Some need a structured environment, others need the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop or book store.
The life of a creative cannot be dictated by too much structure, because once life feels predictable, the creative juices quit flowing.
There is one thing, however, that will stifle and kill any creative spirit. This one thing is insidious in nature, often creeping in when we don’t even expect it.
The death of creativity lies firmly in comparison.
When you begin to compare your gift to her gift, your structured way of working to hers, you will very slowly choke out your own creativity. You are unique.Your method of working is unique. Your talent is unique. Don’t give in to the beast of comparison that whispers softly, “You’re not good enough. Her talent is bigger. Her platform is better. Her skill is more beautiful. Her method of working is more productive.”
As soon as you start ingesting these lies, your creativity will fade.
The creative life cannot be cut into cookie-cutter shapes. It is beautiful because it is unique. Embrace your creativity, and your method for working. Don’t fall prey to the cruelty of comparison. If it means you have to stay away from Pinterest, from blogs, from certain groups or activities, do so. You are uniquely creative, and your gifts are yours alone.
Guard them and share them in the way that lets you uniquely shine.
Several times in the last few weeks, this graphic has shown up in my Facebook feed.
The first time I saw this, my heart leapt. It fit perfectly into a piece of the message that my friend Wendy and I are sharing in the book we’re writing, so I filed it away as a potential quote to put in the book.
As the graphic continued to appear in my feed, I finally decided to look up this quote so that I could properly site where C.S. Lewis had written or said it. That’s when I hit a little snag.
I don’t think this quote came from C.S. Lewis.
I have searched every way I can think to come up with a credible source for the context in which one of the greatest authors in history might have offered this nugget of wisdom, and the best I can come up with are cutesy little printables like the one above on Pinterest and Etsy. What’s more, I’ve found the same quote written and attributed to another man, a Dr. John Trainer.
So who said this?
As much as I would love to say it came from C.S. Lewis, I really don’t think that it did. That quote, while beautiful, does not really fit the style of writing or speaking that you so often attribute to Lewis, and the fact that there is zero reference as to where the quote came from gives me reason enough to pause.
But well done Dr. Trainer for saying something so profound that it got pegged as a C.S. Lewis quote. If Dr. Trainer even said it at all…
It’s easy to get swept up in the pretty of the internet, particularly Pinterest and Etsy, but we have to be careful the messages we portray, and the false inspiration we attribute to past leaders and well-known figures. I think this quote by Abraham Lincoln says it best:
Happy Thursday, everyone! Here’s to the final few days leading into the weekend. May they be full of wisdom, free from distraction, and just funny enough to keep us sane.
Because I am so near the end of this pregnancy, I am what you might call…um…large. Great with child? My eleven year old says I’m HUGE. He’s learning tact.
Most nights are, to put it bluntly, completely miserable. I fall asleep quickly, and I sleep well until somewhere between 2:00 and 3:30, at which point I might as well just start getting out of bed and calling it day. Instead, I toss and turn, and mumble about the wicked heat, despite the air being turned as low as my husband will allow it, and a fan pointed directly at my face.
When morning finally rolls around, I try to pull myself out of bed with a good attitude, but generally my first thought is, “Well thank God that’s over.”
Then I suck it up, act like a big girl, drink a little coffee, and move on with my day.
Such is life. We don’t always get what we want, and sleep is overrated anyway, really. Who needs it?
(I do. I really do.)
I’ve also got a To-Do list that’s a half mile long, with two-thirds of it probably residing somewhere on the unrealistic side. Nesting is no joke, you guys. Last week, I took out the strongest cleaner I could find and washed my front door.
I WASHED my FRONT DOOR.
Add that to the list of ridiculous things I feel like I need to finish before baby arrives and you get a small picture of the crazy that is surrounding most of my days. Feel free to pray for my family as they deal with me.
The cherry on top of all of it is my desire to keep creating. I was in a creativity groove this summer, and I love it. I poured myself into my creative pursuits, writing and dreaming up ideas. I started new projects, and continued to push forward on completed projects. I published an ebook, sent out countless queries for my novel, started the proposal for a new book, and wrote blog posts for several different sites.
It was so much fun! My writer heart felt very fulfilled.
Now, however, the time to create has begun to taper, and I know that when the baby arrives there will be a period of time when it stops altogether. Fatigue plays a role in this lack of creativity, as do all those other tasks I want to accomplish. I’m still setting aside some time to write, but not as much as before.
And that is okay.
Living this life as a creative is a constant balance of knowing what I need to do and what I want to do. We creatives tend to be our own worst critics, never feeling like what we do is enough, but in the pursuing of our art, we can so quickly forget to live.
A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I watched the movie Hook and I was struck by the last line of the film. Granny Wendy looks gently at Peter after he returns from the grand adventure in Neverland.
“So,” she says. “Your adventures are over.”
“Oh no,” he replies. “To live – to live would be an awfully big adventure.”
In the quest to accomplish and finish and do, it’s really easy to forget to live. Stepping away from the To-Do list long enough to swim with my children is not a waste of time – it’s living.
Putting aside the writing for today so that I can focus on preparing for the arrival of my daughter is not a waste – it’s living.
Enjoying a game night with my family instead of folding and putting away that laundry is not a poor use of time – it’s living. (And let’s face it – who wants to do laundry anyway, Amirite?!)
It’s all part of the adventure.
So this one is for all the creatives who feel like there just isn’t enough time to create. Don’t be afraid to set it all aside for a little while. Don’t be afraid to live, because to live is the grandest adventure of them all.
As we close in on the due date, sleep is naturally elusive. Thanks to the heat, I am swollen and uncomfortable, and I am apparently carrying a tiny little radiator because I cannot cool off to save my life.
Incidentally, I also told my midwife yesterday that I think I might be carrying an octopus because I swear there are eight legs kicking me from every single angle in there. She was a new midwife. She doesn’t get my humor. She told me I probably wasn’t carrying an octopus.
If I birth a squid she will be sorry she didn’t believe me…
With sleepless nights come some unreasonable emotions. Being that this isn’t my first rodeo, I know what to expect, and I am offering myself a little bit of grace these days as I prepare to bring our baby girl (octopus?) home.
The other night, I woke up at 3:30. This is par for the course, but as I tossed and turned, a nagging worry began rolling through my heart. It bubbled soft at first, then quickly grew until I was in full blown panic.
Usually I wake up because the baby is playing Tetris in my ribs. This time, however, I noticed that I couldn’t feel her moving. She was very still, and that is unusual. Suddenly the silence of the night and the darkness that surrounded got the best of me, and I feared the very worst.
I never worried about losing a child in utero with my other three. Of course I knew it was a possibility, but I didn’t exercise a lot of mind power on thinking about it, because I didn’t really think it could happen to me. I also had never read a blog, nor been on Facebook the first three times I was pregnant.
I birthed my first three children in the dark ages. We were still using film (FILM!) when Sloan was born.
In the six and a half years since I last had a child, I’ve read countless heartbreaking stories of families losing children late in their pregnancies. It’s much more of a reality to me now and, naturally, more of a concern. I know I don’t need to worry, but again, darkness and fatigue are a wily combination.
I finally got up and drank a little orange juice, then pushed on my belly a little until I felt her shift. She’s not moving as much as she used to due to the fact that there is no more room in there. The Inn is full! It’s time to move on, little one.Thankfully, the shifting set my heart at ease long enough to let me go back to sleep. But the fear was waiting for me when I woke back up.
Having already walked with my older kids through a terminated adoption, I feel more emotion than I know how to communicate at the idea of them experiencing another loss. It nags in the back of my mind, and as I wake each morning I have to lay all those fears to rest. Already, before she’s even born, I’m relinquishing the control over her tiny little life. She is not mine, but merely a gift from God. I will trust Him, and I know I will continually have to lay down this fear throughout her entire life.
I know, because I have to do it with the other three.
I know, because I still pray for the little girl sitting in an orphanage in Russia who had a family ready to meet and love her.
Part of being a mother is dealing with the natural worry that comes with the territory, and with the onslaught of stories passed down through social media, we’re faced with the reality of those worries on a daily basis. So each day begins with a prayer for their safety, and with the relinquishing of control, because I am not in control.
I spent a little time in her nursery this morning. It’s peaceful in there. The colors are soothing, and the room is clean (for now), which makes it the only clean place in the house (for now). As I sat on her bed, I felt her shift and move again, and I was grateful for the reminder that all is well, and I am not in control.
God has been Gracious and Merciful to our family over the last three years. They have been hard years, but He has been faithful. I am trusting in His Grace and Mercy to bring this little girl (squid?) into our family safely (and soon! Oh please, soon!). So when the darkness closes in, and the world becomes still (too still), I will embrace the knowledge that He is Gracious, He is Merciful, and He is in Control.
And I will quit complaining when she jabs me in the ribs, because that feeling is evidence of the blessing.
I didn’t get to decorate a girly nursery for Tia. We never really expected to have a girl, what with the generational pattern of Stuart men only producing boys and all. And since we didn’t find out her gender ahead of time, I operated under the assumption that she would be a boy.
We had a boy name picked out, and I had washed all of our boy clothes and put them in the drawers, so certain that we were going to bring home another little man.
To say we were shocked in the delivery room is putting it mildly.
The best I could do after she was born was buy some girly bedding, but other than that, I didn’t attempt to girlify the nursery, because I knew we weren’t done having kids and I figured we wouldn’t strike the X-Chromosome gold twice.
Can I just tell you how much fun I’ve had putting this little girl’s nursery together?! The amount of cuteness that accompanies decorating a girl nursery is hard to put into words. And the funny things is, I don’t even like to decorate! It gives me hives. Thankfully, I have friends who like to decorate, and who aren’t intimidated by Pinterest. Those friends helped me pull together a nursery that I have come to love.
The aqua paired with the coral makes me ridiculously happy. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve decided next year I’m going to do Tia’s room in similar colors because every time she walks in, she lights up as well. What is it about these colors that makes our girl hearts swoon?!
One of my favorite touches in the room is the bird cage hanging in the corner. My friend Tiffany sent me a picture on Pinterest and all but ordered me to find and hang a bird cage. I mentioned that I don’t enjoy decorating, right? So the idea of hanging a bird cage was a bit intimidating. But when I saw this cage hanging in an antique shop last week, I couldn’t resist. I bought it.
My husband is utterly baffled by this choice in decorating. His exact words were, “Hanging a bird cage without a bird in it is like buying a car without an engine. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve gotten too liberal in your decorating.”
Given that this statement comes from the same man who doesn’t believe in buying clothes from Target, I took his comment with a grain of salt and moved forward with my liberal decorating.
One of my other favorite little touches was finally getting to hang these two drawings. Three years ago, right after we moved to Florida, I had the opportunity to travel to Hollywood for the Red Carpet showing of The Lion King in 3D. While on that trip, we got to meet two of the Disney illustrators, Mark Henn (Supervising Illustrator of most of the Disney Princesses, and of Simba from The Lion King) and Tony Bankroft (Pumbaa’s Supervising Illustrator). Each of the bloggers on that trip went home with unique sketches of Simba and Pumbaa drawn by these talented illustrators.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to hang them ever since!
The room is, at this point, completely done. I don’t know that I’m going to hang anything else on the walls except for one more sign that we will get after she’s born. I like having some open space because it makes the room feel bigger and brighter and cleaner.
I am fairly stocked up on diapers at this point, and the teeny little dresses hanging in the closet?
I die.
So at this point, the only thing we have left to add to this baby room is…
