The Pit of Creativity
Visualizing my creativity with the ball pit at the Color Factory, NYC, February 2019
It takes all of me to write. I mull…over every word, every phrase, every fun but unnecessary exclamation point. I take a header into a pit of creativity and I find it really difficult to pull myself out. Once I’ve checked into the creative pit, I’m like Jack Torrance from The Shining when that creepy bartender at the Overlook Hotel says, ”You’ve always been the caretaker here.” Damn, I knew it! Since I’ve figured out that my creative realm is a pit—an abyss devoid of time and space and sleep—I feel the need to limit the time I spend there.
Why do I use the analogy of a pit—a hole in the ground—to describe my creativity? Well, the creative pit is not a comfortable place. It’s a disorienting mixture of moving parts. I’m so absorbed that I forget basic stuff, like eating, what time it is, and how many cups of tea is too many. For a visual reference, I picture that bottomless trough of balls in a play area, which is most certainly hiding some interesting goodies under all of that plastic. Then there’s the infamous “pit” at Michigan State University, my alma mater, that comes to mind. The “pit” is what the students affectionately called the place where you registered for classes—walking from table to table to pick up or drop classes. I know “the pit” primarily from folklore, as computer registration began during my four years there, but it was apparently a dreaded place, of mayhem and tears and collegiate angst.
Anyway, once I’m in my creative pit, I try not to emerge until the project I’m working on is complete. That, of course, doesn’t always happen, so I leave the door to the pit slightly open. I take my creativity along with me into my daily life and I leave a part of me behind in the pit to tend the inventive fires. As the Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco said, “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” So, even when I’m going about my everyday, non-pit life, my head is still working on the writing project, whether it’s a new song, an essay, or this indie music blog. C’est la vie.
I have tremendous admiration for people who are able to live more fully in their creative realms. A few of those people who come to mind are: Lenny Kravitz who, with his recent album, Raise Vibration, is as dazzling as ever; Patti Smith who again delivers an elegant journey in prose with her latest book, Year of the Monkey; my friend the artist Soyoung L. Kim who just created a spectacular mural at the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts; and my friend Natalie Bass who, along with her husband, Mike, creates cool, innovative stuff to sell in their Madison, WI, shop, Zip-Dang. Bad asses all, they inspire me to listen and get to work when my creativity calls.
The glorious Lenny Kravitz and his band, Agganis Arena, Boston, August 2019
As I ventured into the pit to write this blog, however, I got distracted. I got distracted by a letter I was writing to the editor of our local newspaper about the permanent protection of a threatened wooded area in my town. I got distracted by a new song I am working on. I got distracted by regular old life…but my song selection for this edition of the Plum Indie Blog set up shop in my head regardless and ran on a loop through my thoughts. That Plum Indie tune is “Our Girl” by Our Girl, a trio from Brighton, U.K. I discovered Our Girl on a search for new indie music and found them in the Guardian article, “Pop, Punk, and Protest Songs: The Hottest Music on the Horizon in 2019” by Alexis Petridis. I was immediately drawn to the band’s song of the same name, “Our Girl,” from their 2018 album, Stranger Today. It’s a gorgeous and gritty indie tune with hints of Rilo Kiley as well as its own fresh indie identity, which simultaneously rocks and soars.
While I was mulling over the letter to the editor with this blog simmering on the back burner, Our Girl vocalist Soph Nathan’s beguiling voice would travel through my musings. “Don’t be so nice,” she would sing ethereally from the chorus of “Our Girl,” driven adeptly by the rhythm section of Josh Tyler and Lauren Wilson. Ok, you’re right, I think. Not everyone will like what I have to say in my letter to the editor but the issue is important enough to warrant speaking out. “Don’t be so nice.” Ok, it’s true, I say to myself. I should spend more time in the creativity pit and work on all of my writing projects at once, but that will mean spending less time doing other stuff. “Don’t be so nice.” Ok, yes, I’ll spend more time in the pit. I’ll accept the inevitable. I mean, it’s not like I can just ignore my creativity anyway…after all, I’ve always been the caretaker in the pit of creativity.
Luckily for us, Our Girl is living fully in their creativity and the indie music world and beyond is better for it. The band is currently on tour in the U.S. Give “Our Girl” a listen, starting here.
Hanging out on the Zip-Dang couch with my bandmate Ben Reiser, “The Ens,” Madison, WI, circa 2013
“I take my creativity along with me into my daily life and I leave a part of me behind in the pit to tend the inventive fires.”