Andra Watkins

How Do You Fill Your Creative Tank?

We all dry up sometimes, right? No, I don't mean, you know........ *wink* I'm talking about creating, the sloppy, joyful, maddening, chaotic realm of carving away pieces of our souls and flinging them into an angry world. Read on to find out more about how I'm filling my creative tank.

We all dry up sometimes, right? No, I don’t mean, you know…….. *wink* I’m talking about creating, the sloppy, joyful, maddening, chaotic realm of carving away pieces of our souls and flinging them into an angry world.

Filling the creative tank.

I haven’t much felt like creating over the past 18 months. Dad almost died. I assumed responsibility for my elderly aunt and thus have my first human child.

Extraordinary pressures in a spewing sewer of un-luck.

But like most people today, my very soul is pummeled by the internet. I have panic attacks when opening my news apps. Despair at our divided-ness, our national disease, rips my mood from surface buoyance with its otherworldly suckers and countless tentacles. My feeble spirit drowns every time I go online.

This week, I (mostly) took a break: From appearing (only 3 gigs), from the internet (no idea what whiplash drama is unfolding in DC), and from constant strategizing over how to keep my books alive (while still not to metaphorical base camp Mt Everest.)

I’M FILLING MY CREATIVE TANK.

A rusty hull, a dusty husk. Because I haven’t treated it with care, it is riddled with untold fissures, phantom leaks. But self-care doesn’t start with honing our bodies at the gym, indulging in routine “maintenance” on our saggy forms, or communing with the likeminded.

No, self-care begins with the soul. My empty, fathomless soul.

Here’s a short list of how I’ve been filling my creative tank this week:

1. Ten hours of sleep per night.
2. Two daily baths in a sunken tub with plain epsom salts and wine after 5.
3. A movie (Red Sparrow, loved it) I wouldn’t normally choose.
4. Mainlining the Red Sparrow series.
5. Renewed practice with omelet-making, a skill I developed during my summer residency.
6. Yoga.
7. Origami.
8. Visits to Merry’s grave and meandering drives along the Natchez Trace.
9. Catching up with Nashville friends.
10. Watching cows graze and playing with three spunky black labs.

My soul isn’t yet free of cobwebs. I haven’t caulked all the cracks. But I’m hopeful for the first time in ages. I believe in my squirming, disembodied creations, both done and yet-to-be. (Hint: Get YOUR copies of my books. CLICK HERE.)