Editors note: Diane is offering a free writing workshop, Writing Your Recovery, for Cathedral Arts via Zoom on May 17. This class is now full, but Diane will offer another class in June. Click HERE for the class description and registration form. Click HERE to learn more about Unity House where Diane works.
Welcome all. I am so happy to be connected to the Cathedral Arts community. Our new virtual life has to include our spiritual lives and a life in the arts even while, and even as, we care for our families, our day jobs, and do what we can to be of service in our community.
So, here is what this new life is looking like for me this month.
I work at Unity House in Troy, New York. At Unity House we serve people living in poverty, victims of domestic violence, adults with serious mental illness, and children 5 weeks to 5 years of age. We have been –miraculously—been able to keep all of our programs open through this time of COVID-19. Our food pantry is open. We have a free take-out lunch Monday through Friday. (Those are for everyone—not need to “qualify”). Our domestic violence services are fuller than ever: a DV shelter, legal services, therapies, safety coaching, and accompanying police on safety visits. We maintain housing and case management for adults with mental illness—among the most vulnerable citizens. And recently we opened our daycare for the children of First Responders and Essential Workers.
That means my work day is busier than ever. And that means I am more challenged than ever to keep a spiritual life and a creative life in place. The first few weeks of this new life were very hard. I was consumed by work and slipped in some prayer each day and kept writing “Meditation” and “Writing” on my to-do list. But that didn’t happen. Too tired.
At last I remembered that I could pray about prayer and meditation, and I could pray about my creative life. That helped. My prayer was something like this: “God, help me to find my way back to writing. If it is your will for me to keep a creative life, please help me.”
I found that I had to manage my expectations. IF I tried to write for an hour, I did not write at all. If I gave myself a ten-minute assignment then there was a good chance that I would write for ten to 20 minutes. And, believe me, those bites added up to pages, and essays and stories.
I also had to make a deal with myself that doing some messy writing was better than no writing. So, I lowered my standards. That got me some nice messy drafts that I can edit on other days.
I also—recently—realized that maybe this is a time to try some new things—again very messy and imperfect. So, I started to record myself reading very short essays on Instagram (dianeoklotacameron on Instagram). Some of them are so very clunky but I decided to see this as improvisation and performance—more creative work that I can do in this time of having less time.
Whatever your artform give these ideas a try: a one-minute sketch, “write” a song in the shower, turn on the video on your phone and sing a song just for your friends, if you are making masks give them a frill or a Dadaist kick. You get the idea.
Keep praying, Keep Creating, Keep washing your hands.