I have run out of all my ideas.
I don’t have any good ideas for classes
I don’t have any good ideas for quilts
I don’t have any good ideas for podcast episodes
My book won’t come out of me. Or rather I will not sit down to write the book. I am convinced nothing will come out of my fingers. There are no good ideas in there for words. I have run out of words.
I jump in the water day after day waiting for an idea to come, waiting for one single sentence, one chapter title, one tagline for a course. I have run out phrases.
I leave social media behind thinking certainly the flood of awareness will take flight, I have run out of quick witted banter, I miss art openings, isolation remains
I walk June along the path, no sounds but the birds in my ears
I lay on the ground and pray
I trudge through The Artist’s Way yet again
I open my emails and my texts and I struggle to return them
Even a simple idea for a response, I no longer seem to have it
I watched every season of Selling Sunset and my one idea was - since I have no ideas left maybe I will get hair extensions and fake nails and try making a baby. Why not, I don’t have any other ideas to tend to, what a great experiment.
My discomfort comes from resisting the waiting. Resisting this season of no ideas. I don’t feel free or happy but I also don’t feel depressed and void. I just don’t have any ideas.
Mary Magdalene only had to wait three days for Jesus to come out of the tomb and I’d simply love my own waiting to take less time. Yet I imagine those days required great patience and trust, the commitment to keeping the eyes wide open, faith at a maximum. The thing about God is time stands still and no ideas come and the waiting remains holy.
This is how surrender works, crafting the timeline is not my job.
I had so many ideas and they all floated away to someone else because I didn’t grab any. God’s strange punishment for not snatching the floating brilliance, I am now left with shimmering dust that I can’t figure out how to piece together.
I thought perhaps this is my attention I have not fully reclaimed, but I manage to read and to teach and to see my 1:1 clients with great presence, calm, and excitement. When these moments come to completion though, I have no ideas.
This is also to say, I have a million plans. A residency, a small publishing project, the roadside stand, a creative reuse center, many books, flower farm, trips to take, quilts, a quilt show, a zine about quilts, a book about quilts. Whatever comes after the container of the idea, the first step and the steps that follow, this is what I’ve run out of.
I am all out of first steps. I am all out of the capacity to create forward motion. I have tied my shoes and walked out the door but the next clear step doesn’t come. I take a nap everyday like the winter of my breakdown but this time I don’t feel mentally unwell, I just feel like there is nothing of substance to bring forward.
I feel the vastness of being a small grain of sand on the beach and it seems like everyone else has it covered. I don’t mean to say why bother but, with no ideas, I can’t help but wonder why figuring out what to bring forth is worthy.
With each day comes less light and I trust my hibernation and output time will return. I invite myself to know that annually, in July, I will have no ideas. In August I will also probably have no ideas. None will come to me!
July gives the cruel illusion of bright and long days but the wanting doesn’t come. The wanting stays small, stays in nothingness. I want to do nothing. I want to want to do something. I want to have an idea.
Alas, I have run out.
