filling up the empty

I've been creating a lot lately, all year really, in new ways and in many of the same old ways. Sometimes I stop and wonder when, or if, the well will run dry, where it all comes from, this thing called creativity.

For me, art goes in cycles, and some days it is there and some days it just isn't. Some days I am empty. But even on those days, I don't despair, I don't worry, I don't think it is gone forever.

I sit back and I wait. I watch. I listen.

I absorb everything I can about life and I hold it inside. I let it rest there until it is ready to be something other than a void, I hoard words and thoughts and memories, and things I've seen or heard or read, and I keep them all in a box with no corners.

I sit quietly and I let them come to me, the shy ones, I let them nudge my shoulder when they are ready. I let them sing their own song, softly, until they are ready to belt out the words.

Sometimes I don't have to sit for very long before that word or that image or that bracelet or that design falls from my fingers in just the right way. Other days I struggle and I struggle, and on those days I know that I must wait.

Wait for the empty to refill, wait for the spilling over, for the stress or the doubt or the tiredness to clear, wait until what it is that I need, exactly what I'm looking for, steps into the spotlight. I can almost always sense what is there in the shadows, but I cannot force it to shine.

I have to be patient and gentle and kind, I have to let the empty be itself. I have to let my mind sit alone, I have to give it space to wander.

And somehow it always finds its way back home, sometimes with gifts and a hug, sometimes with a frown and a stance of frustration, sometimes weighed down with heavy baggage.

But I've made friends with the empty, I welcome it with open arms, and when we spend time together, I cherish it. All that empty space is making room for more beauty, more words, more art.

The empty is a cup that life will fill.

Again and again and again.