Space to Create
I don’t often let myself get bored, but when I do, there seem to be extreme consequences.
The first time I actually recall this happening was just before giving birth to my daughter. I weighed 1000 tons and it was the middle of summer in the humid Waikato region of New Zealand. I keenly remember the craving of KFC chicken and navel oranges, gross combo but hella good standalone. I also remember noticing all the extra space in my head, because for the first time in 22 years I wasn’t constantly thinking of ways to lose weight and stressing about how fat I was. Remarkable really. It was during this time that I started up a little online store where I sold second-hand goods that I had sourced and photographed. All that spare mind space now had something big to focus on, so focus I did!
The second time I remember ever being this bored again was during the Covid-19 Lockdown of 2020. The health community in New Zealand had started a petition calling for the government to enforce a harsh lockdown quickly to avoid the loss of human lives that were starting to ramp up in other countries. The petition gained momentum and within a week the government made the call to enforce a strict lockdown starting very suddenly. One minute life was normal, the next we were confined to our houses with not much to do.
All of a sudden there was this extra space, again! Although I had my daughter home from daycare and both me and my husband were still studying, I still noticed the extra hours in the day, and the mind-numbing boredom that sometimes came with it.
For the first week, I binged Netflix. I couldn’t help it. Where there’s a gap in the schedule, there’s a screen to fill it, or so every Millenial is quick to think.
But the second week saw me start to draw. At first, it was simple with no direction, but over the course of lockdown, it developed into a never before seen expression of my creativity. There were bright colours and bold lines and the best part was that I wasn’t drawing on heavy inspiration from elsewhere. I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted this before, but a lot of my creativity comes from research and inspiration. It’s not really a bad thing, but I’ve never realised the freedom that comes from not leaning heavily on that! This art, these drawings, all this work seemed to be true creativity coming from inside and bursting forth onto the screen.
And it felt good.
I haven’t heard a lot of Covid-19 stories, but the ones I’ve heard from friends seem to have the same thing in common. In our fast-moving, crazy hectic Western world, there has been a forced slowing, and in that slowing, there has been good. I’m trying to hold that goodness in one hand while also trying to fathom the heartache and chaos happening to the rest of the world at the very same time. It’s tricky trying to give these new things the gratitude they deserve, while also feeling empathy towards the devastating loss of others.
The only way I can see it reconciling is to take this newfound joy, this discovered freedom, and express it in such a way that you lift up some of those that have been oppressed and have been experiencing the very opposite in this time of lockdown.
So I’m going to finish by saying this, and I’m telling myself this as well: Get bored a little more often, find a new ‘thing’ or develop an old ‘thing’ in a new way. But don’t ever forget the tool that it can be to make this world just a little bit better.
Ka kite anō, see you again.
