Presence is a hot topic. Get connected. Make time. Put away distractions. Wherever you are, be all there…. Sure, I’m all in for that, yes, it’s wonderful. But I’ve found that this wild thing happens when I’m present, or just after, and it’s called thinking. |
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I know, but stick with me. It happens on the heels of an evening playing Code Names and drinking wine and eating cake with family. While playing trucks on the playroom floor. During a brisk fall walk with leaves showering my hair. While nursing the baby. Reading bedtime stories. Making dinner. Changing diapers. Running photo shoots. Editing images. Watching Suits with my husband and a cup of tea. Reading the news. |
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I’m committed to these moments, however small or ordinary or fun or creative or not. But then, there's the thinking. Sometimes right smack in the middle of said presence. Call it wandering if you will, but I don’t see it that way anymore. When you’re meditating, you work to clear your mind and maintain clarity. Presence isn’t the same, though. It’s kindof the opposite - it’s letting your body sense. Open to everything available in a moment. There’s tons of science (re: this amazing read I devoured earlier this year) to suggest and support the idea that play stimulates creativity - it’s true for both kids and adults. So to me, the call and respond of creativity requires an understanding that presence and processing must piggyback off each other. |
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This is why I've latched onto a few habits that help me chew on what’s going on in and around my life. Not just quarterly or on birthdays or New Year’s Eve. But regular habits to make meaning from the world and give all the input somewhere to go. It’s how I hold space for the stories of suffering coming out of the Middle East and discern in private how to stand with the innocent. I am, I’m learning, likely what “they” call an empath - aka deeply and sometimes troublingly moved by people and their passions and pains. And in a world that is heavy with all of the above, if everything is important, eventually nothing truly gets my attention. And I can’t have that. I can't get stuck in the feeling part, crumbling in a puddle, without ever moving to the action part. Processing is the bridge. I process to make sound decisions, discern what I really believe, and take small steps somewhere when my brain and heart are pulled to leap everywhere. |
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Here are 3 of the practices I like to do to process : 1. Bullet journal heading pages I’ve been keeping a bullet journal for almost 2 years, and each month leads with a few heading-type pages. (If you want to see more about this, I have a highlight called ‘journaling’ on Instagram with a very rough overview of it). The first page has 2 lists - book log + tv/film - where I chronicle those arts I consume in any given month. The next page is “what I learned” where I keep a running list of major takeaways from podcasts, conversations, or books that stick with me and get my gears turning. Next is “these are the days” (a la Emily P. Freeman’s concept from The Next Right Thing guided journal). This is a running list of things that are of the month, a certain season, or specific to life right then. It's how I know with a quick flip that August days were for fixing up an old bike and nursing by an open sunroom screen door at dawn. For that time when Gavin said “when I grow up, I want to be a lions-mane jellyfish.” For the days of Aarons first roll to his tummy and watching Kira light up from the empty UVA amphitheater stage like it was Broadway. Those memories are nothing, but they’re everything. I write them down. Last, there’s a generic notes page. It’s for the random ah-ha’s, the “gotta remember to do that”’s, the connections that spark at the most spontaneous times, the scribbles and wonderings and ‘what-if’s.’ I write something in these pages every day. Not all of them and not at the same time. It takes just seconds so it's always doable. I keep the notebook and a pen in a kitchen drawer and pull it out whenever I’m holding something in my head, whether it seems meaningful in the moment or not. |
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2. Voice memos after shoots On the way to all my shoots, I ride in silence - thinking and praying over the creative act ahead and meaning that will come from it, tapping through my mind-roladex of heartwarming vibes. But on the way home, I will often record voice memo reflections from the shoot itself while I’m spinning on the adrenaline and the car is (for once) quiet. I rarely listen back to them - that's not the point. But the verbal processing is somewhat magical. I process out loud what went well, what I could have tried but didn’t, what I would try if I could do it again, how this shoot was unique or challenging and how I problem-solved. What I loved and saw in these people. ( a podcast really isn't a huge stretch, I've been talking to myself for years ;-P) All this information helps me hold space for the importance of each family, each shoot, each piece of work and recognize its potential. This is a pretty new one as I’m only about a month in (I shared about starting it in this letter,) but WOW I see what the fuss is about. I tend to take a pause from it on weekends, and there have been a few mornings where I’ve needed to prioritize say, a shower, instead of 20-30 minutes of writing. But I will choose writing over sleep most days and get out of bed eager to do it because it always feels like a million doors unlocking as I move my hand across the page. I have stood up from this practice with tears in my eyes, not even knowing when I sat down that thing that came out was a thing that was twisted up in there. It’s cathartic and beautiful and private. Not everything needs shared right away, or ever. This has been a helpful reminder of that. |
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One of my greatest fears is looking back on my life in old age and thinking “what just happened??” When I’m both aware of and reflecting on my life - the people speaking to me, the nature surrounding me, the words I say, the mistakes I make, the wisdom I hear, what makes me laugh and tastes good and warms my heart and makes me mad… I can get clear about where my feet are planted and where I want to take them. After all, presence in a moment is all well and good, but it really shines when we make room to experience it twice. |
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