There are times when I go days without painting.
Sometimes weeks.
Life gets busy. Work takes over. My body asks for rest. There are appointments and responsibilities and laundry and dishes and all the ordinary things that make up a life.
But even when I’m not standing in front of a canvas, I’m creating.
I’ve been writing Morning Pages for more than sixteen years. I write stories. I take photographs. I arrange flowers. I move things around my home until a little corner feels beautiful. I fill sketchbooks with wonky birds and faces and whatever else catches my curiosity.
Lately, I’ve been creating pieces for our wedding — flower arrangements, bouquets, hand-painted flags, table decorations, and little details that probably look like wedding preparations to everyone else.
And they are.
But they’re also something more. They’re another place for my creativity to go.
I’m beginning to understand that I need to create like I need to breathe. Not because everything I make needs to become something. Not because it needs to be beautiful. Not because I need to sell it, share it, turn it into content, or prove that I’m a “real” artist.
I need to create because creating is one of the ways I process being alive.
Creativity Has Carried Me Through My Life
When I look back over the hardest chapters of my life, creativity is almost always there somewhere.
Sometimes it was painting. Sometimes it was writing. Sometimes it was decorating a room, planting flowers, taking photographs, or making something with my hands.
Creativity gave feelings somewhere to land when I didn’t have words for them yet.
It gave me somewhere to put grief. Anger. Longing. Confusion. Hope. Beauty.
It helped me make meaning from experiences that didn’t make sense. And sometimes, it simply gave me a few hours when I could disappear into color and texture and forget about everything else.
That matters too.
Creating Isn’t the Same as Producing
I think our culture has a strange relationship with creativity. We’re encouraged to turn everything into something measurable.
If you paint, are you selling your paintings? If you write, are you publishing a book? If you make something beautiful, can you monetize it? If you have a creative practice, are you doing it consistently enough? But some of the most important things I’ve created will never make me a dime.
Some will never leave my house. Some will end up painted over. Some will live quietly inside a sketchbook. Some existed only because, for an afternoon, making them made me happy.
That is enough.
Creativity doesn’t always need an assignment. Sometimes creativity is simply the experience of being fully present with ourselves.
I Notice When I Haven’t Been Creating
There’s a restlessness that begins to creep in when I’ve gone too long without making something. I feel disconnected from myself. Something feels backed up inside me.
Then I sit down with a sketchbook. Or open my journal. Or pick up a paintbrush. And something shifts.
The outside world hasn’t changed. Whatever problems were waiting for me are probably still waiting. But I feel a little more like myself again.
Maybe that’s why I’ve kept returning to creativity through so many different versions of my life.
Creating brings me home.
We Are All Creating Something
When I talk about creativity, I don’t mean that everyone needs to become a painter or writer.
Creativity is much bigger than art. We create gardens. Meals. Homes. Traditions. Businesses. Relationships. Adventures. Communities.
We create the way we dress, the spaces we live in, the celebrations we plan, and the small rituals that make an ordinary Tuesday feel beautiful.
And, choice by choice, we create our lives.
That’s one of the ideas at the heart of Wild Orchid Woman:
"We are the artists of our lives."
We may not get to choose every circumstance. Life will hand us things we never would have chosen. But again and again, we are invited to ask:
What do I want to create from here?
Create Because Something in You Wants To
Maybe you’ve been telling yourself you don’t have time to be creative. Maybe you think you aren’t artistic enough. Maybe something you once loved has been sitting untouched for years.
You don’t have to make a masterpiece. You don’t have to show anyone. You certainly don’t have to turn it into a business.
Buy the flowers. Write the page. Plant the garden. Take the photograph. Make the weird little drawing. Paint something wonky. Decorate the cake. Rearrange the room. Create something simply because creating it makes you feel more alive.
I have spent a lot of years trying to understand why creativity has remained such a constant thread through my life. Maybe the answer is simpler than I thought.
I create because it connects me to myself. I create because it gives shape to things I cannot always explain. I create because beauty matters to me. I create because even during difficult seasons, making something reminds me that possibility still exists.
I create because I am alive.
And somewhere along the way, I realized:
I need to create like I need to breathe.
If something in you feels this… you’re not alone.
I share reflections like this, along with creative practices and quiet encouragement for the journey, in my monthly newsletter, What’s Blooming in the Orchid Garden.
You’re welcome to join us.
When you subscribe, you’ll also receive my free ebook: “Create Boldly. Live Beautifully: A Gentle Guide to Reclaiming Your Voice.”
Wander a little further through the garden...