The honest clock

Do you ever feel like time is pressing up against you, in a physical sense? I’m talking beyond the “full calendar” feeling. Sometimes I feel like there are rows and rows of ideas lined up inside of my head, waiting to be addressed. Story ideas. Painting series. Mixed media concepts. Tapestries. Installations. Workshops. Vignettes of little worlds that don’t exist yet. But I can envision them in full color and somehow they already feel alive.

I always get a little excited when i stumble across another artist making things that align with the vingettes in my head. It’s the dopamine rush that comes from recognition, followed by pressure to go hurry and make something.

And the idea themselves feel urgent, like they want out. In Big Magic, Liz Gilbert talks about creativity as spiritual forces that brush past us as they search for willing participants. Ideas arrive, like birds on a window perch. If you ignore them, they fly off somewhere else. Gilbert compared the process of chasing creative ideas to trying to grab the end of a tiger’s tail before it disappears around the corner. I suppose all art is trying to catch hold of something already in motion. Is this why creative folks sometimes seem to experience time so differently? Because we’re living more than one life?

The other night I was talking to my friend who is also an artist. He’s a musician, and he mentioned something that has been lodged in my brain for the past few days. He mentioned that there wasn’t a time constraint on Artists. Athletes are directly connected to their bodies, which deteriorate at varying paces with age. But Artists deepen. And, because I’m me, I immediately pushed back with, “Until arthritis/dementia/cataracts.” Bodies change, energies change, and time changes us whether we like it or not….

But he smiled (in the kindest way) and said that he truly feels as though he has all the time in the world. And if I didn’t love this guy and his wife and kids so much, I’d envy him. Because I don’t experience time that way AT ALL. At alllllll. I feel like I’m living closer to its edge, like an animal in the wood listening for the sound of snapping branches. I feel seasons ending while they are still happening. I notice my children becoming older while we are brushing our teeth. I see all of the subtle shifts in every moment. I feel the joy of ideas arriving and sadness of them leaving.

And because I live in that intensity of daily life- caregiving, regulating, cooking, cleaning, with uninterrupted moments lightly sprinkled in- “time” doesn’t feel linear to me anymore. It’s fragmented and quiet time is rare and expensive. And yet, I can’t read a single children’s book to a child without forming a parallel story in my mind, complete with illustrations. And please know that I don’t believe that I possess a rare talent by any means. I’m really just trying to describe the urgency I feel to “do something with it” and guilt I feel, constantly, for falling short of my overactive imagination. It’s like I constantly feel like I’m not handing in my assignments at school. I never feel like I’m “nailing it” but maybe creativity isn’t ours to conquer. Maybe it’s “enough” to just stay in conversation with it and to remain porous enough for the ideas to keep chasing us.

Back when i was an art teacher, everyone made fun of me because the clock on the wall never worked. I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep up with changing the batteries and it was NOT to be counted on. The only honest clock in the room was the drying rack. Kids would ask how long certain projects would take and I would tell them we’d have to see how things kept unfolding. My lesson plans and calendar required me to allocate a set number of class periods for each project, but things were more fluid than that. Back then, I thought I was teaching them about art but I was also actually teaching myself how to live. In a world obsessed with acceleration, visibility, and proof of completion…creativity operates on a totally different timeline. Noticing and processing is part of the process and to create we must absorb and reflect.

So is there a wrong way to experience time?

Is it healthier to assume the future is abundant, or wiser to understand how fragile it all really is?

IDK. Maybe it’s enough to make half finished things in chaotic seasons, instead of waiting for the perfect weather. Even if the work remains unfinished. Even if you only had 10 minutes before the next time you were needed by someone. Even if the paint is still drying.