Trying to Build a Container

If there was ever a time that I needed a container it would be now.

If there was ever a time that I could pinpoint my creative energy freaking out on me, it would be now.

There's nothing like that moment when you catch yourself moving toward patterned responses to change, shifts, and new ideas.

I could feel the moment it started to happen.  I was walking around Victor, feeling energized and excited to have this experience.  I was able to explore the town on foot and take pictures of the places in which my family lived. This was building on the excitement I had last night as I watched a Victorian Olio in the Elks Lodge. It was a world that my grandma experienced as a girl. It was a world that my great grandfather experienced as a boy.  It was an unfamiliar feeling. As a person who grew up with movement, change, and uprootedness, the idea of locating the rhizomatic fits and starts of my family linked me into something I had not felt before.  It was awesome.

But as I sat on the train for a tour of some of the area's mines, I started to feel overwhelmed by the energy.  It emerged in the form of self-doubt. I am so different from this place, why did  I ever think I could research family I never really knew? What kind of research would this really be? What kind of story could I really tell?  Who do I think I am?  You've been wanting to do this for years and here you are, freaking out.  I could feel it start to soak into other parts of my life.  I started to crave all the comforts and strategies I use to silence those voices. I didn't want to feel the uncomfortable voices.



The voices sort of waned, but then I got back to my room and as I sat on my bed, I started to panic.  I pulled out my notes, the booklets I collected from the day.  I set down my digital camera, ready to log the photographs and fill in all the notes from the day.  But I sat there, frozen.  I felt how much I wanted to stuff away the self-doubt, but looking at my materials strewn across my bed, the self-doubt increased.  Normally, I would do something, anything, to take me away from those feelings.

This was the moment I knew I needed a container, because this is the moment in my research and writing that I generally start to pull in all my procrastination patterns. The things I do to shut out the self-doubt.  Unfortunately, it does not just shut down the self-doubt; it also shuts down the creative process. I lose too much.  I let all the creative energy dissipate off into self-doubt and fear.  The difference this time is that I had no access to those patterns--at least most of them.

There is no cleaning that needs to happen.  There are no silly phone games to play.  I can't call Matt and try to find something to do with him.  I can't ride my bike.  I can't go to my favorite coffee shop.  I can't seek out comfort food.  I can't take Max for a walk.  I can't putz around the house.

I am in this small room in a bed and breakfast that is more like a hostel. I'm in a town that has no coffee shops. It has no real distractions for me.  My work is all that I have around me. So what did I do? After I called Matt to actually express some of how I was feeling, I sat and I filled in my notes for the day.  I did it as I felt the panic wax and wane within my body.  I kept writing.  And now I write a blog entry.  I will then go on to notate my photographs.

None of this feels like a container, but it is containing my energy. I'm getting it down on paper. I'm getting it down digitally.  I'm making space for the self-doubt to co-exist with my work.  I have been letting self-doubt win lately.  And that has caused me to lose some of my creative drive.

Yes, I'm feeling isolated. Yes, I'm feeling ungrounded. Yes, I'm searching for my container. No, I don't know what it is yet. But I do know that I'm building it right now.