The Artful Lodger

Driving through Idaho.

I love a hotel for writing. Something about being dislodged (while lodging) sparks creativity for me.

We had our bathroom remodeled a bunch of years ago and because of poor planning and too-soon demolition we had to rent an apartment for a month while waiting for the bathtub to be in stock. We also stayed in hotels during another month of that summer. And while I was pissed as hell at our contractor I got a LOT done. I played the ukulele more than I ever had and recorded songs for my dad. The writing flowed, too.

Whenever I hear Father John Misty’s Fear Fun I think of that time fondly. We listened to that album in the car pretty constantly. "You can call me Nancy..."

So when I woke up this morning in our room at TownePlace Suites in Pocatello, Idaho, visiting my in-laws, I thought, hey, how’s about a blog? And I had no idea what I would write about but here I am. I worked on my book a little and now this.

It has been an intense year, first of all. Losing my dad and my brother-in-law was a lot. I allowed (and still allow) grief to flow. Sometimes it’s like I need to be gently rocked in a hammock and sometimes I’m doing my grief thing like the end of Dr. Strangelove, as Kong rides the launched missile as if he’s on a bucking bull.

I also have been back at the drawing board with my book (which became three books) and am restructuring in a way that will be way more satisfying to the reader. We are just going to continue to learn in this creative life, right? You think you sort of master something and then another door opens at the back of the room and you’re like, oh shit, I gotta go fight Bowser now. 

Erin Telford, whose breath work courses I have taken, had offered a reminder recently that progress is a spiral, so sometimes it feels like we’re going backward. I have been remembering this a lot, especially as relates to writing. But actually it relates to life’s progress, too. Like, oh wait, I'm not actually standing still or going backward. I'm just learning some new stuff.

My dear friend Sara Alvarado was talking about the rollercoaster of life, but that it’s really more like a trampoline, and sometimes you’re jumping on it and other times it’s all you can do to lie on it flat. 

From my trampoline/spiral/missile/metaphor to yours, consider this a fist bump. How lucky am I to have so many creative people in my life who will totally get this? Once in a while we're going to feel like we’re moving backward but we really it's an illusion. And it's OK.

So where are you at? Restructuring? Dislodged? Lodged hard somewhere? My cave has technological capabilities and I’d love to hear about it.