Sometimes your creativity doesn’t make sense.

Like when you’re supposed to be “working,” but you start making up poems.

Or when you’re on a writing deadline, but the urge to dance it out comes over you.

Or when you finally set aside time to write/paint/sing/dance, but all you want to do is lie on the floor and cry.

 

Those moments may not make sense, but follow them anyway. For those are the moments when the creative muse has taken over.

It happens when you least expect it.

You might squelch it without realizing it.

You can’t predict when it will happen or for how long.

 

So how do you let the muse in and find your creative flow?

You listen.

You listen to yourself and to the impulses and creative urges that tug at your sleeve, like a child wanting to play with you.

You stay curious.

You experiment and follow the impulses with curiosity, as if someone had planned the most fancy surprise date and is leading you towards the next destination.

You clear the crap that’s in the way.

You stop tolerating the unrealistic workload that’s being thrown on you at the office. You start making house rules that guarantee you’ll have time and space to yourself. You recognize the habits you’re becoming too reliant on (ahem, Facebook scrolling? Netflix?) and you start to let them go so that you can face the thing you’re most scared to face: yourself and your creative potential.

It’s that delicate balance of planning to have creative time, and also being open to the happy accidents (bow to Bob Ross) that pop up along the way.

Your creativity might not make sense all the time, and that’s exactly why you should listen to it and let it lead the way.

 

Making too much sense makes for a boring and predictable life.

Outside of sensibility is where the magic happens.

 

wishing you wonder, flow, and senseless joy,

Jess

p.s. Part of my non-sense this week has been writing poems. Didn’t realize it happens to be National Poetry Month – it must’ve been the creative muse who knew first! Here's one I'd like to share:

 

Could it be that all along

I was on a path, but it was wrong.

 

The work I did, the daily grind

Was all in vain and not aligned.

 

Could it be that even though

It wasn’t perfect, it helped me grow.

 

Each and every time I tried,

Something grew and something died.

 

Could it all be part of a plot

That I once wrote and soon forgot.

 

For maybe it was meant to be

Exactly what would set me free.

- Jess Grippo 4/27/16