Blossom

You never know what you'll find or where your finds will lead you. Yesterday, on a walk with a friend, I found an enormous number of these branches, in a huge pile by the curb, ready to be picked up by the town's yard waste removal program. The buds, at that point, were tight, and mostly green, but clearly ready to burst open. Mostly, I was attracted to them because I can never quite resist the thought of recreating interesting branches in silver. But I also thought it would be lovely to put the branches in water and force the blossoms. I wasn't certain it would work, because I've only ever heard of people forcing a small subset of blossomy branches--forsythia, flowering quince--but it seemed logical that all flowering trees would function on the same basic principle. Within hours of getting them home, it was clear they were very pleased with the jar of water I gave them.

I have this negative reaction to the word "force" in this context. It seems somehow cruel. But really, trees and bushes like to be pruned--they grow better for it. And what better to do with the clippings than provide them with what they need to shine? A jar of water, some warmth. It's not much as far as structure goes, but administered at the right time, that's all it takes for a branch to explode with flowers.

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I am constantly amazed at how desperately I need to be creating something--writing, jewelry, pottery, photographs, sewn projects, knit projects. It almost doesn't matter, because even when I'm working on something that isn't in one of my primary creative categories, as long as I'm really engaged by the work, it's a sure bet that it will eventually bleed right into working on something that carries more weight for me.

But it's not easy for me to keep that sort of creative momentum going on my own, and that's dangerous, because when I don't keep it going, I become depressed. More than any of the other things I do to combat my depression (and they are multitude), creative activity is the most important, the most consistently reliable. It's no exaggeration to say that an afternoon spent writing or throwing pots has a drug-like effect on me.

Over the last couple of years, I've come to believe that having some sort of creative community is almost imperative for me in order to continue or deepen my creative practices. I never called myself a writer until I had a community of writers with whom to share my work--people to whom I was responsible for getting some writing done, people who considered me a creative peer. Beyond my writing practice itself, having that community transformed me into a writer. If nothing else, I felt the structure of my responsibility to them--when it was my night to workshop, I really felt that positive pressure. That forcing. They wanted blossoms from me, and so I blossomed.

The last couple of months--since the beginning of this year--I've found one external prompt and creative community after another. First, A River of Stones, and the community that went with it, and then the Wading In class and that community. And now I'm starting the next of Vivienne's photography classes, You Are Your Own Muse, and I expect that class and its community to be every bit as wonderful as the last one. One reason I decided to take it is that I love just knowing that there are people with whom I'm responsible for building creative community--people who are both out there doing their own work and also excited to witness the work that I'm doing. It's totally inspiring. It's just the sort of gentle, casual structure I need, apparently, to force myself in the right direction, to be consistently happy; to explode with flowers.