My sister Liz asked me something the other day: How do I find time to process things, to be creative? And then it hit me: I don’t, and I can’t.
As my days as the chef at the grouse camp here in Minnesota come to an end, I am realizing that this past month I’ve basically just done kitchen work and that’s it. Sure, I get to cook every day, but for the most part I’ve simply been cooking my existing recipes. I’ve felt stunted.
Luckily, the guests don’t notice or care that it’s not something new and innovative, because, well, my recipes are good and I know how to cook them. But I’ve been awash in wild mushrooms, grouse and woodcock, and you’d think I’d be able to whip up something new and wild and tasty with them. But I haven’t.
Turns out that I need things like proper sleep and alone time and space to putter in the kitchen to develop dishes and combinations that scratch my creative itch. Turns out that many creative people need this, or its equivalent.
Creativity isn’t a tap you can simply turn and beautiful things rush out.
Creativity is non-linear. It ebbs and flows in rhythms deeply personal and idiosyncratic. For some, it’s late at night, after the stresses of the office have fallen away. For others, it comes in those quiet spaces in between cruise directing the lives of your children and spouse.
For me, who has no children and who, normally, works from home, it’s in the morning after I’ve had coffee and a bite, after checking messages to put out any virtual fires, and after I’ve answered at least the most pressing of the torrent of questions asked of me by readers, followers and friends.
Those hours before lunchtime hunger pangs arrive are when I can truly be creative. It’s when I normally write (it’s when I am writing this now), it’s when I research new recipes, tinker with elements of a dish in the kitchen, and talk with confidantes about whether this idea or that might actually work.
When all goes well, I mentally and physically prep for making a dish in the evening, make said dish, Holly photographs it, and bingo! We got ourselves a cool new recipe.
Welp, that won’t happen anymore. Holly and I are split up and 2000 miles apart. How my old routine will work in my new life remains to be seen. But I think the structure may survive. At least I hope it will.
But even in my old life, sometimes things went sideways. A recipe wouldn’t work, or I’d get caught up in something, or whatever. It was OK, as I could always revisit said thing later. But I’d need the time to review it, to grok what went wrong and how to fix it. That takes time.
Time I don’t really have here at the lodge.
Distractions short-circuit it. So does interacting with most guests; I am not a natural extrovert, and dealing with the public taxes me dearly, as it does with most creative people I know. My life is not my own here, and that has sapped my creativity nearly dry.
I knew this on a cellular level, knew that something had been gnawing at me other than the plain ole’ physical exhaustion, but it took Liz to give it a name.
She should know, too. Liz is my oldest sister, and as a painter and illustrator, she is the most traditional artist in our family of artists: I am a cook and writer, my sister Laura is a book designer, and my late brother Dave was a writer, too. Liz gets physically ill if she lacks the time to process. I just get ornery.
All four of us are all rather non-linear and quirky. We don’t do so well working for others, or at least in heavily structured environments. Turns out being a camp cook at a lodge is a heavily structured environment. (I can hear all my fellow cooks out there: Duh, Hank!)
But there is light in front of me. I leave here Friday, and will be bringing back some mushrooms, grouse and woodcock to tinker with in my new kitchen. I’ve learned a lot here, working with hundreds of these birds — something I would not get the chance to do outside of a lodge situation — and there are some deeper truths about working with these birds that I have only just learned and am eager to share.
Tell me, what do you do to stoke your own creative fires? How do you carve out brainspace to be your best you?
Hank, stress impacts creativity so much, whether work, divorce, any major life change...you’re in survival mode, and trying to rebuild... but you can’t do that little brother, until you grieve, get angry, rebuild. Cooking, love, art, writing help, but the stress/grief itself..., changes your drive and perspective ❤️
I find physical activity (of any fairly brainless variety) really helps settle my head and sometimes unlocks a creative puzzle--or presents a new one. Hauling brush, mowing the lawn, getting through my morning exercise class; these are all pretty good times for me to focus, or just float mentally, whatever it takes to turn on the lightbulb.
That said, a long drive can do the same thing for me and without having to shower afterwards.