Outside is the antidote

Stepping away from the screen to fill ourselves back up

I have spent too long indoors, curled over a laptop. When working for yourself, in your own creative business of making art and sharing it with the world, when you are trying to make this a viable life and you are not getting paid for it, not enough, not yet, how do you drag yourself away?

I meant to read my own post, on what I need within a day, to build my days intentionally from these blocks that are the cornerstones of what makes me happy. And yet.

I have an attic full of paintings. I decided, this year, not to hold back any more. I was invited to write an article for someone else, and I decided this was a good time to put the work out there. I thought the hard part would be the decision. I thought the hard bit was feeling wobbly while I sorted through blue pigmented paper, coming up with names, photographing them and arguing with the light, wobbling on the top step of the stairs, which seemed to be the only place the light stayed consistent from moment to moment. But I was wrong. The hard bit was putting them online. I am not a web designer. I have no desire to be a web designer. A couple of days into the process, I looked up what a web designer would cost. And to refer back to the not getting paid part, I realised that was not an option for me. And so I spent the best part of a week struggling to build an online shop in Wordpress) which is not designed for online shops…)

But what I realised was how easily I was consumed by it. I missed every opportunity to swim that week. I was late for family gatherings. I didn’t get outside enough. My back hurt from curling forward over the laptop, and I was so frustrated it’s a miracle I didn’t throw the laptop through the window. But I did it. And then, I knew, I needed to get away.

It is all too easy to let that work - not the creative, fun part, but the bits around, the admin and the tech and the dull dull dull bits - take over your time. I needed not to be by a screen. And so I went with my partner when he went away for work. I drove, out of Manchester, into the hills. I walked round a reservoir, where I had no phone signal. I followed the well-made path up, beside a falling stream, gushing over rocks, until the path was no longer well-made and I was clambering over boulders. I went up the ‘path’ at the side of a waterfall. The sun disappeared. I almost turned back when I wasn’t sure I could cross the downward flowing water. I stopped, to rest and decide, and I spotted another route. I made it across, and just a few boulders up, I came across the most perfect pool.

White water crashed down at the back of it. At the front, a ledge of rock held it safe, black water contained. There was a small grassy changing ledge. I got into my costume and slipped into the black.

It was clear, the water, not black after all. I could see my toes when I floated my legs in front of me. It was the colour of Guiness, my skin tinted brown. The rocks towered over me. The water crashed down. My hands tingled, my breath stuttered, and I dipped my face, too, to let the cold claim all of me.

I was not, in this moment, creating anything. I was not furthering my own creative ‘business’. I was not making or doing. But those moments are as necessary as any of the rest of it. Without those moments, I do not want the rest of it.

I changed and walked back, fast, shivering, happy. The next day I went to three different art galleries and a free jazz festival - again, not creating, but feeding myself nonetheless.

It is all too easy to be consumed by what we have done in a day. I am wondering if, instead, we need to shift that to ask; how did the day make us feel?

Make all my painful work worthwhile and buy a painting? Or go enjoy a browse of lots of lovely blue things.

OR, you can support my work with a subscription or a small tip on Ko-Fi, it would mean the world.