All of our lives have been upended in the past few weeks. Our daily routines of getting up, feeding the family, getting the kids off to school before heading into work, have been replaced. Now the kids are home, many with little or no direction from their schools and teachers. We can only leave the house for “essential activities” and if you are lucky enough to be able to continue working, most likely you are doing it from home (thank goodness for high-speed broadband).
With more time on our hands it appears we are all spending more time on social media. Aside from the flood of COVID-19 and quarantine related memes, the most common posts I am seeing are of people sharing their acts of creation. It is WONDERFUL! People are baking bread, some for the first time. Others are breaking out the paints, pencils, and all imaginable mediums to create art. Those with musical gifts have been sharing mini concerts streamed live from their living rooms. The silver lining from all of our isolation has been a marked increase in creative output and more importantly, engagement with family, friends, and the world at large via online platforms to share our creative works.
Mortise & tenon joint that will be part of a new railing.
I noted in my last post that life stress was crushing my creativity, particularly as it related to my photography. I have been doing a better job managing my stress level, first by taking walks in the woods, and now by rediscovering my woodshop. So why the woodshop you ask. Well even though our county and state “stay at home” orders allow for outdoor activities, as long as you practice good social distancing and avoid all group activities, Mother Nature has seen fit to keep me indoors just the same. In a word, allergies. A few years after moving to North Carolina, I began to develop seasonal allergies, most notably tree pollen. So as long as the trees are happily reproducing, I am relegated to indoor activities.
If you haven’t taken on a creative project in your hours of isolation, I highly recommend rediscovering one of your old hobbies, or exploring a new one. If you live with kids, involve them in the creative process as well. Put down and shutoff the screens (after reading my blog of course) and let your creativity shine. I would love to know what you create, so share what you make and tag it with #creatinginquarantine.