What's going through my head right now #21

Roots

“Are you writing your new novel? When will you publish your short videos again? Do you write every day? You have to keep practicing! Do you still have time for art? For dancing? Do you still dance? How's your book coming along? When's your next reading? Where can I train with you? Do you still train? And if so, how much? How often?...”

Where am I right now? How much art is in me, how much creativity pops up and, more importantly, when? Does it just come back to me because I have a little more time again, my focus is sharpening again, and my everyday life, my rhythm, my routines are settling down and I can finally develop a balance between work and private life that I had to do without for over a year and a half and definitely missed?

Because, as I wrote in my last newsletter, dancing is essential to me. It's something that belongs to my life, like breathing. And writing creeps up on me with miles in its boots and has also conquered me, even surpassing dance on some days. While dance, like an old tree, draws its strength from a never-ending source, has formed so many roots that it draws its energy from both depth and breadth, is completely self-sufficient and does not hold my negligence, occasional ignorance or extended breaks against me, writing is somewhat different.  There are sometimes lapses, moments of barrenness, like the ailing chestnut trees in front of our new front door, which lose their leaves far too early because they are infested with leaf miners. So autumn is arriving even though midsummer is still in full swing. Just as my ideas and conceptual approaches form numerous versions in my head, and as soon as I want to put them on paper, I lack the language for them, I have lost them, the words fly away or fall into the void. The leaf miner survives in the fallen leaves. If the leaves are not burned or at least removed from reach, the moth will infest the trees again year after year. Fortunately, the leaf miner seems to be just a phase for me, one that has come to a head this summer but will certainly not repeat itself next year.

Oh dear, now I sound quite dramatic and am wallowing in self-pity. Yet every week, a new newsletter is also a writing exercise. The constant, the need to express myself, to communicate and spontaneously choose a topic that pushes its way out of me, that wants to be penetrated, reflected upon, and formulated. So everything is fine after all. Because writing is also one of those processes that comes to you when you least expect it.

Especially when you've just gone through a stressful move, have a new job coming up, and a lot of things are changing.  The constant—my morning walk with my dog, dinner with my partner, and the closeness and warmth of my two favorite creatures at night—forms a fundamental routine and certainty, but much remains unclear, offering me little room to daydream, fantasize, and experiment at the moment.

Things will get better again, I know that. Like the roots of an old tree that find water even in dry times, my creative sources will fill up again. Perhaps this time of transition is exactly what both my writing and my dancing need: new soil, different nutrients. The chestnut trees outside my front door will lose their leaves, but in spring they will turn green again.

And so I trust that balance will be restored. Creativity will return, and I will write and dance again. Sometimes it just takes patience to realize that waiting is also part of the creative process—the time when new roots form.

The new novel? There's a lot going on in my head right now.

Dance? The instrument is coming back into tune.

The imagination, the creativity, the intuition? They're on their way.

So... it'll be fine :-)

Jochen, cordially