Creativity and Living with the Virus

Like many people out there and in lock down, I am starting to accept the situation that we are currently living in.

My first reaction from the last few weeks was to catch up with life online.  My teaching had to be moved to the virtual world in the space of two days.   

I initially struggled with the online platforms that are on offer (zoom, MS teams). The workplace had not fully set them up and it took sometime for all of us to learn to share their use.  

Still things can be improved, and now we have a full examination period coming up online.

At home I had to become more patient.  Combining work with just spending idle time has not been easy for me.  And as a creative person, I am supposed to make the best of the situation.  

But I am also an anxious one, so my creativity needs to accept that the adjustment is to take some time.  

Cooking, gardening, reading crime novels, video-conferencing, writing a new book, shopping, going for runs, more gardening, cleaning, more cooking, stopped writing the book (it is with my proofreader now), restarted writing old papers and new papers.   And a good support group with bit more of mindfulness practice have become the activities of my week.  

I thought I was not doing much, but on the whole and looking at the above list, it is quite a lot!

Creativity is still here with me, with my family, with neighbors, with key workers in supermarkets and in hospitals, with the self-employed.  It is not the old creativity we used to know.  Rather, and like the virus, she has mutated for good.  She is asking us to focus on the important things, to rest, to chat with loved ones, to make things simpler, to stop unnecessary shopping, to consider how we are going to make the best of the online world, to be more compassionate with ourselves and others.  

For me this would mean being bit more patient, pray again, meditate again, enjoy my slow writing, my close family, my cycling (when possible), and my garden.  

And for you?  

Try to rediscover your creativity, welcome her back to your home and your souls, don't ask her for the impossible.  And enjoy her company.