For the End of Summer
when creativity runs dry, "Septemoir," refrigerator pickles, and questions I'm taking on a personal retreat
Earlier today I told a friend that my creative well has gone dry. Here I am at the end of summer sitting cross-legged down in the dirt, happy but with hands that are weathered and worn.
It isn’t such a bad thing.
For the last eight months, I have poured every last ounce of myself into book writing, and I don’t regret it. I can confidently say I have given all I had in the best way I knew how. I am not saying it is going to be genius or that this book will be THE BOOK. I just know I’ve squeezed out every last drop.
But now my mouth feels like cotton, tongue stale against the roof of my mouth.
The thing about being human is that the creation process often runs against the grain of culture. We can know in our minds that we need rest. Our work needs rest. As Sarah Southern recently wrote, good things take time, and creation isn’t a machine.
But the push toward achieving outcomes over cultivating art often leaves me feeling like I am never quite enough. Someone else will always do more, be more, have more. (More, more, more…) Consumerism never quits.
But here at the bottom of my well, I’m finding a contentment that says, “It is good.” It is not scarcity but an echo of God’s original creation that invites us to pause before moving on to what is next. While I may have nothing to show for these days or weeks of relative stillness, what I find in the dust of my creativity is the stableness of earth. It is a settledness I cannot produce or manufacture but that finds me within the lulls as I trace my fingers through the dirt.
The dry well is not a deficit but a vessel of possibility. The pause is a gift in and of itself. Because here in the subtle shifting, as so many songs and poets and wordsmiths have said before me, the end is often a beginning in disguise—a turning toward all that is yet to be.
Good Things to Pick Up
As we lean toward the end of summer (and perhaps the end of other things as well), here is a little goodness I collected lately that I want to pass along.
I’ve been trying to fill my Instagram feed with more artwork and beauty, and I was compelled by this painting by Jeff Johnson, a piece inspired by Psalm 23 called “Valley of the Shadow.”
I’m currently in a little lull between writing and editing the book, so I’ve devoted the remainder of the month to reading through an unruly stack of memoirs — “Septemoir” as one person on Threads called it, so we are going with it. The books currently on my list include:
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Telling Secrets and Now and Then - both by Frederick Buechner (thanks to John Blase for the recommendations)
Lit by Mary Karr (Yes, I know this one has been around a bit. I’m slow.)
Because I took August and September off from our Human Together Book Club, you’re welcome to pick up one of these books (or another memoir from your own stack) and read along with me in Septemoir. (Quick update: Book club will be picking back up in October — more on that soon-ish.)
I have been doing a lot of pickling this summer. And while I’ve been a lifelong fan of dill pickles, I fell in love with this recipe for making my own. Our oldest son and I eat them like candy, and now I never want to go back to the plain-ol’ boring jar from Kroger.
Later this week, I’m doing a personal retreat to recalibrate as my schedule and pace changes a bit this fall. It’s time for me to reflect and discern how to allocate my time, energy, and attention, as well as where to put my relational capacity (this changes with every season…). Here are a few of the questions I’m carrying into the retreat.
What good things would you add? Share them with us.
Those are such great questions to ask on your personal retreat!! And the pickles look delicious.
Few look at an empty well. . .and see possibilities! I think it is well. . . with your soul.