stretching the creative muscles

Tonight, I opened my sketchbook, my pretty, pretty book that I fell in love with on the shelves of Barnes & Noble on my birthday in 2009.  I dreamed of filling its pages with all the inspiration and ideas that it could possibly contain. 

And that is exactly what I did… for a while.

Before tonight, my last entry was from February 6, 2010.  It reads,

“Beyond your wildest imagination, this He has for us.”

As my charcoal pencil stretched and scribbled across the crisp white page, it felt both foreign and familiar.  Much like the Pilates that I did this evening, {also} for the first time in ages.  Even the most basic exercises were a little more difficult than I would like to admit, but I did just spend most of last year growing a child, so whatever.

After Pilates I always feel wonderful, my body feels whole, my mind calmed and refreshed and yet somehow I still neglect it.  I have no good excuse.  As an artist, that very same sentence applies to how I feel about art. I feel the most alive, the most refreshed, and the most at peace when I’m creating, dreaming, and designing. Because, at those times, I feel the most connected to my creator.

And yet, sometimes I let the sketchbook sit on my desk closed for too long.  Sometimes, it’s too easy to walk past the blank canvases on my shelf and engage in some brain-numbing activity instead, because I’m exhausted. Isn’t it tragic that we often opt out of doing the very things that make us feel like the best versions of ourselves, because another option feels easier? safer?

When was the last time you did something you love? Do you remember the last time you…

baked a pie. wrote a letter. painted. took a walk. danced. played piano. practiced a foreign language. dreamed. indulged your creativity. made someone’s day. read a book. picked a bouquet of wild flowers. stood on the beach. watched the sunset. rode your bike. opened your sketchbook. did the very thing that you love, that which makes you feel the most alive?