Art Takes a Vacation

Artists need vacations. We need vacations from our art. The art-to-come will appreciate some space and time in which to germinate on its own, down in the part of you that is disengaged for awhile.

 

Although I often plan to increase my writing schedule during the summer—because the days are longer and I feel more energy—the summer does something to me, and the writing slows down. Sometimes it stops altogether. I am learning to give in to the impulse and to rest from creative work.

 

This means that I left laptop and serious reading at home when we took a week’s vacation recently. There’s always a journal in my bag, just in case, but the presence of a laptop applies emotional pressure to open it up and write something. Surely I could write about the canyon we visited, or the way our canoe slid silently through warm mist in the early morning. Surely time with family would bring up relevant and emotional material for a poem or story or essay or even the next novel. Surely the opportunity to become well rested would begin a new process of mindfulness and exploration into so many marvelous daily details.

 

But no. Sometimes life must be lived, that’s all. The day is here to be enjoyed, and left alone. Sometimes it’s best not to think too much or turn every event into meaningful reflection. As a writer, I experience vacation when I give myself permission not to write. Sabbath time is time be-ing without adding anything, including creative reflection or rendering.

 

In a way, I practice humility when I cease my writing. I recognize that a wondrous view is wondrous whether or not I write about how wondrous it is. A lovely conversation is no less valuable because I refrain from spinning its contents into an essay. When I take a break from creative work, I admit that, as powerful as that work might become, it is not necessary for the continuation of meaningful existence. My art, like everything else, is a gift. After the fact that I woke up this morning, still alive, my words are extra.

 

Yesterday, the evening bent low. The sky was lit in a vague pink, and the breezes moved lazily, warm as human breath. I sat in the back yard and looked up into the elm tree, its leaves nearly black against the dusk, and I thought, just for a moment, that I should be writing. How could I waste such magic? But I couldn’t move. I stayed there at least half an hour, just gazing upward.

 

Later, I brought the laptop to the porch, hoping to generate sentences. But again, some low-current hesitation stopped my hands. I realized then that this was one of those times for breathing in, for letting the wonder trickle down into all the cracks and openings and soak my every sensibility. The goodness of the evening—its taste and shimmer—would pool inside me like old wisdom, like eternal memory.

 

When I write again, I will have lost nothing at all.

Comments

[Fencing Bear]

Lovely, Vinita! I am learning to accept that I, too, need to slow down in the summer, rather than trying to force myself to write because "that's what academics do" in the summer. Summer seems to be a time for gathering ideas and letting them grow slowly. Something is happening, but it can't be hurried. There will be plenty of time for writing once the autumn comes.

[Vinita Wright]

Amen to that, Fencing Bear!

[deb cleveland]

What a lovely way you have with words.
Thank you.