Trusting the process
A meditation on the cultivation of creativity during the pandemic
The other day I woke up with an idea for a song. When I’m still in that groggy subliminal state between waking life and the astral plane, my thoughts feel more unfiltered and concise. I try to roll these ideas around in my head for a bit, before whatever news story I’m supposed to be mad at for the day has had a chance to monopolize my mental real estate. I type out some notes on my iPhone, frantically trying to capture these fragments before the thought bubbles pop, before the moment passes and I’m left empty-handed. And sometimes, like a ball of dough being spread out by a rolling pin, these fleeting thoughts gradually grow into something more substantial. I went on to write an entire song that same morning.
I’ve become more acutely aware of how inspiration is manifested in myself this year since being confronted with the realities of the pandemic. Landing back in Toronto on March 15th after spending a week at the Banff Centre as a guest mentor for the International Songwriter Residency, Pearson Airport looked like a scene out of Armageddon: cars were parked all the way back out onto the highway in the dusty stillness of Canadian winter, honking at each other, their occupants waving in the dark at loved ones who were running full sprint towards them. On the drive home, I mostly felt an incredulous numbness. Previously booked shows and festivals had been cancelled. My life as a touring musician was over for the foreseeable future.
Over the next few days, I resigned myself to making absolutely no art for as long as possible. Coming off a stretch where I acted in a play for a month in Montreal, recorded in Los Angeles for a couple weeks and had two separate stints at the Banff Centre, I didn’t mind the idea of slowing down. Not that I had much of a choice. The world had just entered an unprecedented moment of forced isolation, uncertainty and dread. These weren’t the most inspiring circumstances for making some tunes.
Quarantining with my partner Sara, I mostly cooked, a different style of creative act. She made bread. I learned to bake desserts. We had Zoom drinks with our friends. We watched everything, we watched institutions buckle under the weight of sustained observation. We played poker with each other. We read perpetually.
A couple months went by and inspiration suddenly returned during the void of activity. I started writing a book about my career. Thinking about what I’d made in the past helped me think about what my future might sound like. I jogged frequently, running as far north as I could, past industrial buildings, past the 401, away from reality. The forward momentum stirred something in me. I’d stop sporadically to write lines down, the words tumbling out of my brain like boulders rolling off a cliff. Other days I’d be brushing my teeth and I’d absentmindedly start composing a whole verse over the insistent hum of the bathroom ceiling fan.
I’d put a beat on and live inside the world of that music for hours until the looped instrumental would tell me what to say. It felt like a safe place to be, inside the song. Writing was one of the only measures of control I had. When coming up with my lyrics, I enter a trancelike state, mumbling repeatedly and recording it onto my phone, eventually replacing the unintelligible noises with something more concrete. This was all in line with my typical process, I just noticed and appreciated it more when it came back after an absence. I’d never really thought about how I did it before.
So much about inspiration feels ephemeral. I’m reluctant to take too much credit for what I come up with. Sure, the sonic touchstones and cultural references that make up my taste factor largely into the music that I make. But I mainly see myself as a conduit for creative energy, an open vessel for the spirits to pass messages through, a human lightning rod that attracts ideas. I believe that artists don’t really create anything themselves, we’re just more experienced at being in the right state of mind to absorb what’s swirling around in the ether.
Anyone can draw from the well but it takes time to learn how to fill up the bucket and drag it out. When I’ve been eating healthy, sleeping well, drinking water and working out, I’m more likely to come up with something. It feels like I have my antenna drawn, ready to catch a signal. When I’m bummed out, I can tangibly sense the interference between me and an idea. A blockage has formed. Like any other muscle, your creativity can atrophy. There’s the fear that it might not come back, that you might lose your jump shot if you don’t practice.
I’m sure many of you have been going through something like this over the last eight months. I’ve oscillated between intense periods of inspiration, unshakeable ennui and deep frustration. It’s been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Outside of my inner world, it feels like dreams are being deflated daily this year, so many people and businesses compelled to throw in the towel due to forces beyond their control.
Of course, there’s a bigger picture and I’m not suggesting that creating art is absolutely necessary or critical right now. I consciously tried not to prioritize it earlier this year. But in spite of that, I’ve found that cultivating my creativity is one of the things that has helped me get through this. Engaging my mind by making music has helped to extend creativity into other parts of my life. Maybe our leadership might be able to come up with better solutions to our current struggles if they had a greater capacity for appreciating creativity.
Now that Toronto has been thrust into a second lockdown, I’ll likely be trying my hardest to avoid another fallow period. It’ll be difficult, it’ll be uninspiring, it’ll be uncertain, it’ll be scary. But through it all, I still feel optimism. Hope is on the horizon and we should find some solace in that. I have a feeling that when I think back on 2020 when I’m older, the darkness will fade and I’ll be left with memories of all the cakes I made, all the songs I wrote and all the art I enjoyed with Sara.
Five Songs
I really enjoyed reading Olivia Laing’s Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency. Some great essays about the intersection of art and sexuality. Her pieces on Derek Jarman, Georgia O’Keeffe and David Wojnarowicz are really compelling, perfectly concise. Her “love letter” to Arthur Russell in particular is devastatingly beautiful. Laing has been careful about who has been included here and why and these decisions tell us much more about who she is than any conventional memoir could. An exploration of art’s purpose and meaning that isn’t impenetrably academic, this book has inspired me more than I expected it to. I highly recommend it.
I loved Jenn Pelly’s Pitchfork profile on Shameika Stepney, the inspiration for Fiona Apple’s Grammy-nominated song “Shameika.” It’s such a nice story about how small actions can have long-lasting positive impacts. I particularly love how much Pelly centres Shameika’s experience here.
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