You're allowed to have your own story in this.

A wooden card holder on a table with a card saying “courage”.

Hello soft heart,

So. I’ve been thinking lately about how daily life is requiring so much creativity right now, and how, when there’s creativity, there’s vulnerability, and then there’s her rascally little buddy, comparison. And oh man, comparison is exhausting.

Do you find yourself looking at social media these days and wondering why you’re not planting a garden? Or learning to knit? Why you aren’t as calm as that person or productive as that person?

If so, you’re not alone. I’m riiiight there with you. Hi.

In some ways it seems like we’re all in this together, and we are, but because of a myriad of visible and invisible circumstances, we’re actually moving through the storm in very different boats.

Some of you are on motor boats that have been revving since early March. You’ve never been so stretched. Your work — formal or informal — is happening at a speed you didn’t know was possible. It’s exhausting and you can’t even contemplate making sourdough bread. Or learning the harp. Or writing letters.

Others are in canoes without paddles. There’s time like never before. It spreads out in the weirdest ways. Watery. Surreal. And yet, it’s still so stressful. Hard to put a finger on why. Sometimes you feel guilty for the stress, you want to help the motor boats, but they’re zipping around the lake so fast. You’re here, not there. It feels like you should “take advantage of this time” but it’s just not happening.

To all of you, no matter how you’re currently moving: Thank you. You don’t need to change. Your boat is your boat, and your story is your story. No one can see the exact combination of challenges you’re facing, and you can’t see the challenges they’re facing either.

I start classes now by inviting the group to bring the same open-hearted curiosity to one another’s pandemic experiences as they do to one another’s writing. This is key. And it’s easy, once we’re asked to. Of course one person needs nightly Zoom cocktail parties and another one needs quiet evenings alone with a journal. Of course one person was in bed all day watching Bill Murray movies and another just worked a double shift at the nursing home. We know how to hold each other when we’re reminded.

It’s easy for me in those moments too. I see all the glorious variation of human experiences and I’m in awe of how powerful it all is, and how beautiful to be able to come together across these distances. And then I finish the class, open Facebook, and berate myself for not doing more cardio. Why is that?

Of course, I’ll just say it, I could use a break from social media. But the essence of what I’m talking about is bigger than a platform or even technology itself. It’s all about creativity.

To be creative — and trust me, you’re doing it all the time right now — is to make a new path. It is to listen to what’s real for you and act on it. It’s to not do the same thing as everyone else, but to let your uniqueness be true and worth acting on. Since we’re all in different boats, we have no choice but to be creative right now, and that’s scary, so we quickly look around us. Am I doing this right? Please tell me I’m doing this right. And the evidence is murky.

I don’t really believe in advice, but if I did I’d tell you to just be curious about yourself right now. You have changed. Get to know this you the way you’d get to know the plot of a novel that was starting to uncurl in your hands, or a beautiful old house on a lake you’d been mysteriously transported to for a season. Or a pet. A really cute, needy, adorable new pet. How would you pay attention to that?

With our bodies expressing new kinds of exhaustion and our relationships taking new shapes — tender over here, jagged over there — and our creative desires roaring and hushed, knowing ourselves right now takes courage and patience and time. That’s okay. You’ve got time. And this is your story to pay attention to, and stand for, and protect.

Here we are, sailing forward into whatever comes next. Be in your complicated, wondrous story today. There’s plenty of room for it.

From over here,