We all have a few friends in our lives that simultaneously inspire us with their work and also make us feel like total failures. You stare at their artwork and read their writing and see their cute apartments and think, “I am so lucky to know this person, they are truly impeccable and I am grateful to know them…but wow I need to get my shit together.” It is that very feeling that has inspired me to write today.
As I sit here at work, done with everything I needed to accomplish today at 11:21 am, my mind wanders to thinking about the discarded film photography that my best friend is recycling with her amazing lettering talents. She sent me two pieces she had created this morning, and called it another passion project of hers. The images made me smile and I felt proud of her for having talent and using it in a way that made her feel productive and satisfied. All the way from Kansas City, she’s sharing her work with me.
Another of my friends keeps a blog, and I visit it often to re-read posts she’s written. Partly because she lives three hours away in Petoskey and I miss her, and partly because her writing helps to console me and also motivate me. After visiting her last month, I visit her blog even more often because I like to think of her sitting in her studio apartment on the bay, drinking wine or coffee and writing in her armchair by the window.
I have a friend who lives here in Grand Rapids, too, and she is starting her graduate program in January. The decision she made to do so, while pre-meditated, was nearly spontaneous and somewhat last minute. She works for the same company I do, and is taking on her graduate program in the evenings after work, in addition to the 20 other commitments she keeps every week.
Long story short: I’m surrounded by some pretty impeccable women doing impeccable things, even if there are miles between us. And as I mentioned, my dear and lovely best friends inspire me and totally turn me into a portrait of envy all at the same time.
I have lists all over my apartment of “passion projects” I’ve wanted to start, accumulated over the last handful of years. I used to tell people about them, but now I don’t; usually they fizzle out quickly after I start them and I don’t like to admit that when people ask about them later. I often have a hard time affording them, lose justification, or realize I don’t have the capability (time, talent, resources) I thought I did to complete them and retreat in defeat. There’s a history of tried and true excuses as to why they never work. I feel moderately inadequate watching my friends turn their passion projects into something real: a regularly posted blog, art, an educational endeavor, a portfolio of work….
Now, don’t get me wrong: my friends are not trying to make me feel inadequate. It’s my own guilt of not being able to commit to a project and see it through. The things I give my energy to right now just seem more important than a side project for fun. I go to work, I complete my contracted work for my side-job, I write blogs for my dance studio twice each month, I go to two dance classes and one gymnastics class each week, and then I spend time with the people I love. After all of that every week, I honestly have adequate time to do more…I just don’t want to. I want to rest.
I get a lovely newsletter from a local artist (she calls it her monthly “Love Letter”) and it had a lovely summary about the idea of rest:
“LEANING INTO REST. We are surrounded by systems that expect us to expect ourselves to keep going at the same rate at all times. Our natural human biological rhythm wants us to slow down in the cold dark months and nourish our minds and bodies with a little more rest, but society often doesn't. This has been a corner I think I am very much starting to soften as an artist / creative business owner and here are my thoughts:
I like to remember that rest is an integral part of the cycle, and its purpose is to serve whatever other purpose we might deem most important. I have been trying to listen to myself more closely, and what I am learning is that rest is space and creating space is a really good thing. Rest allows space to open up, and space allows for things to expand, and expansion usually takes the forms of growth, learning and energy.
Instead of feeling guilty or purposeless when I take some rest time, I find peace in the idea that the rest not only heals me as a primitive response to the season, but it always enables more creativity and productivity to unfold.
I have also been thinking about how rest is an opportunity to step back from everything I am doing and stop, look around, evaluate, and actually appreciate what I am doing. Rest can be an opportunity for observation. If I don't create the reflection time for me to observe from a different vantage point than being completely immersed in what I am doing, I might be left with a lack of understanding and clarity about it.”
Reading that in my inbox this morning made me realize something very important: my passion project is rest.
I know what that sounds like…an excuse to take naps, watch movies, a weird millennial “treat yo’self” concept. It’s not; I promise.
I literally cannot think of a single thing more wholesome than pursuing true restorative rest as a passion project. I also can’t think of a single thing more creative. The ways in which we rest are dynamic: they change with the seasons, and even week-to-week and day-to-day. Exploring those patterns, creating new habits, and honoring my feelings as they come is the only project I want to give my time to. I genuinely believe this pursuit will lead to uncovering every other project I’ve written on beautiful stationary in my favorite pens and tucked away in journals in my apartment. Every photography portfolio, writing endeavor, self-taught hobby, and DIY project will fall right into place, if I can just make sure I approach them knowing that they too, are rest.
When I think about my DIY projects, photography and writing endeavors, and other listed activities I’m looking to turn into something more than a bullet point on a list, they are all things I truly enjoy (why else would I want to do them?). Being intentional that they are always being pursued with positivity and light, and not things that I set deadlines for and create pressure around, leaves them space to be restful as well. Just as my mind feels rested when I come home from dance, dripping with sweat and shoulders begging for a good stretch. Just as eating a delicious meal I spent three hours cooking from scratch makes everything else melt away, as my achey feet sigh with relief and my rejoicing tastebuds rear with satisfaction. Just as assembling and collaging photos on the floor of my apartment creates a space of nothingness and everythingness inside my brain and my heart, all at the same time.
Just like Kristen said: “Rest is space, and creating space is a really good thing.”
Creative space. Innovative space. Space for growth. Private space. Communal space. Reflective space. Space for discovery. Space for passion. Restful space, borne from space for rest.