On creative living.

Lately, I've felt this urge to be more creative. It seems like the idea of "creative living" is rippling through society right now, and it has definitely occupied some of my brain waves. In the more mundane moments of motherhood, I find myself wishing I could run away to a coffee shop and write for a few hours -- a simple thing that is as impossible right now as running away to Europe. I feel that creative urge, but the truth is that right now I can only write in ten to fifteen minute snippets, and even that at the cost of precious sleep. 

Tonight, as I walked home from the park with a baby who had been awake for three solid hours (if you haven't ever taken care of an infant, 3 hours is a very long time for a baby to go without a nap) and a 3 year old who was loudly wailing the entire ten minute walk (he really didn't want to go home), the frustration with the mundane tasks in my life was boiling in my head. There's not a lot of glamour in trying to get your kid to stop hitting others at the playground, or cleaning spit up out of your hair, or losing your patience in public. I finally got the baby to sleep and settled Cal in front of Curious George and started making dinner, about an hour later than I should have. It was a meal that I haven't made before, because I recently subscribed to a meal plan service in hopes of eating more healthily (and out of boredom with my own set of 10 meals that I know how to make). As I zested lemons and sliced jalapeños (simultaneously wondering if it would burn my baby when I touched him later because the pepper juice was on my hands), I felt a sense of contentment that was more than just the fact that I could justifiably ignore my children for a few minutes while preparing food. 

In a small, simple way, I was being creative. I was making something complete out of fragments. While it wasn't my idyllic, peaceful writing escape, it was redemptive. And I realized that in this season of life, it's okay to have small creative moments instead of big, earth-shattering ones. I don't have time to write a novel right now, although I hope that day will come, when my children are more independent and I'm not working night shifts and my husband isn't in graduate school. But I do have time to make a haphazard blog post, a unique meal, a memory. And for now, that is enough.