Today I spritzed on what I call my “writer’s perfume”, the one I got the first time I went to Paris. Perhaps some of you remember the story I told about this perfume in an earlier post. This bottle was a refill mixed and purchased closer to home. Perfume is an evocative object for me as are garments and other accessories. Objects that are the carriers of my dreams and imagination.
I’ve been doing an impressive amount of reading about writing these days. I’ve been spending much more time doing it. I’ve thought (not wrote) about the edits I need to do for my book proposal after getting some feedback. When I’m walking across my house or pacing my roof to get in my 12,000 steps a day I’m listening to podcasts about writing. I’m back to being consistent with my blog posting. I’ve even experimented with doing some micro-stories on Instagram. It seems to go over well with certain followers. Those more interested in ideas and sentiment than clothes.
This quarantine has filled me with a need to tell stories. I’ve come to understand during the past year it’s not the unique look I create with my clothes that gives me pleasure, it’s when I sit down and tell a story about those garments that fulfill my desire, that gives me the feeling of having done something satisfying. In more public spaces, it’s my style that is my claim to fame. Here though, my readers help me believe it may be more about how I write about the materials I use to create that style than the style itself.
Yet while I have so much motivation, time, and opportunity to become the writer I’ve always wanted to be, I keep interrupting myself. It’s when I tell myself I need to make sure I read the New York Times several times during the day, despite being told by all the experts to limit my exposure to news. Yet my tight shoulders tell me I’m worried that something terrible will sneak in past the Statute of Liberty guarding the harbor if I don’t keep vigilant. It’s my need to pick up my phone and trick myself that it’s for inspiration rather than a distraction, that going down internet rabbit holes is for research, not me taking flight from the proper task at hand.
I’ve not in recent history written as much as I have now during the time of coronavirus. The loss of work from my “influencer life” is giving me way more free time than I’ve had in the past. I have given the virus a pet name, maybe to control it, to show it’s not the boss of me. I call it the “Great Interruptor.” Being interrupted brings up potent feelings. Perhaps it was the many times I had to stop what I was doing to take care of someone or something throughout my life. The disrupted dance, music, or figure-skating lessons made me always reserve that last bit of fully giving yourself over to a passion. Disappointment is a hard emotion to handle when you’re a kid. My granddaughter’s chin tilts down, and she frowns. Enormous disappointments involve yelling. While resigned to these interruptions, I never gave up on trying unknown things. I found ways around the disruptions, such as my lifelong habit of reading a favorite book after everyone else in the house had gone to bed. Still wary a part of me waits for someone to turn out the light. However, the interruptions kept coming as they do during an engaged life and I welcomed them into the door.
The “Great Interrupter” is stopping everything familiar. It’s interrupting life for so many in devastating ways, losses of life and livelihood at almost incomprehensible levels. I’m always holding this larger reality at the same time I manage the still privileged reality of my own interrupted life. It’s untenable for me and disrespectful of others to waste anything I have right now. So the phone is going into another room when I sit down to write. I will skim headlines only. I will stop being the Great Interrupter of my life.
Has the Great Interrupter, or you yourself, impeded your artistic pursuits, goals, or dreams? How are/did you manage? Now or then?
First, Le Labo Another 13 is one of my very favorite fragrances. Second, I am reading like a maniac – everything! I am reading fiction, biographies, magazines, recipe books, kids books, blogs etc etc…. I am cooking and baking in an equally maniacal way – for my husband, my daughter and family and am collecting the best recipes for our “furloughed” boutique hotel. I am painting little greeting cards and sending them to anyone/everyone. Gardening, yoga, walking all three dogs separately, pushing furniture around. I am never bored. The time of “interruption” has slowed my down and helped my fast moving mind be so much more grounded.
I am actually kind of liking this “Great Interrupter”
(and I do get dressed every morning and always give my showered body a spritz of my Another 13
Funnily enough, I sat down to read this post just as I was taking a break between two of the creative projects I have been working on during the Great Interruption. I will acknowledge that I too have had the privilege to stay safe at home, and use this time to really take hold of a few projects that I had worked on some, but not enough before this. Now, I am experiencing great satisfaction in both a writing process, and in my work with threadpainting on clothing and cloth. I have also done more domestic creative tasks–gardening, creative cookery, and also some knitting (mostly for my almost 1 year old granddaughter.) All of this creative process is what I dreamed of when I retired almost a year ago, but I hadn’t fully manifested it until I had to stay home.
Now back to work. . . or is it play?
“Great Interruptor.”….Great name. I was lucky & unlucky. I had a home that had a water leak & caused mold. I had to move out of it. Luckily one of my rentals was available that I moved into. I wanted to sell it, but it needed some cleaning up. I’ve spent the last couple months pressure cleaning, painting & fixing everything wrong! Funny how things work out. My home should be finished by the end of this month & now the rental is ready to sell! (Everything I did was without going to the store even once!)
I am an architect from an age when it was unusual for a woman to join the profession. My entire work life was an effort to understand who I am as everyone around me questioned why any woman would want that profession. My professors, my friends, my family. On the day I graduated with a masters degree in Architecture, my grandmother told me that it was time to marry as I shouldn’t take a job away from a man who would, of course have a family to support. But did I really want to be an architect? No. I wanted to be a painter. Thirty-five years later, I took my first screen printing course. I watched accomplished artists layer colours, shapes, materials, all in the goal to create beauty. I struggled. I couldn’t predict layers, five steps ahead of my tentative beginning. What was happening to me? I was a partner in a major firm, I have design awards and I couldn’t design. For some strange reason, I remembered my grandmother’s words and thought, Damn you, I can do this. I thought about why she wanted me to just go home. Abandoned in the middle of the Canadian prairie with an 18 month old daughter by a husband who panicked when the markets crashed, she wanted me to have a safe and secure life, unlike what she gave her daughter, my mother. So I told her story in layers of ink and I found my voice, my grandmother’s voice and that of my great grandmother. Sometimes you just have let go of what you think your story is and let it speak for itself.
You have a beautiful way of expressing yourself—both in the written word and with your fashion. I’m so pleased that you’re writing a book.
I find that interruption is a constant to my writing (still, after so many years) and it’s mostly self-imposed. These days I allow big chunks of time to write and I find myself breaking it up by getting out into the garden for an hour or taking a walk through the nearby bushland (I’m in a semi-rural area in Australia).
I’ve come to think that there’s an energy in this. A way of stirring up the stagnant thoughts to get clear about what I’m really trying to say. My process of writing, interruption, a little more writing, more interruption etc. now feels like a familiar and friendly rhythm. And although it takes me forever to get a few thousand words on the page, it’s a rhythm I truly love.
I wish you all the best with your book and very much look forward to reading it.
Deeply moving in recognition of my own interputor role in my life. Beautifully, sagely written. A soul touching read for me. Thank you.
No, not really. But for me clothes, hats, jewelry , handbags (their stories) are what I love. Where did I buy it? Who had it before me? What did they do? Do I remember my grandmothers using that pan, dish, and so on. I love everyone’s stories. Your writing is something to look forward to. Thank you.
Poética descripción para una virus, me a gustado tu artículo, de alguna forma u otra también he interrumpido varias situaciones en mi vida con esta cuarentena, hacer un paro en el camino para repensar que algo lo está bien, interrumpir una relación , un trabajo, etc.
Hi Lyn,
I have two personal goals During the Great Interrupter (aside from homeschooling and caring for my 8 year old twins!). One, to become more fit. At 52, my back as well as the rest of me demands it. Two, to write! I have a few books in me, and I would like to begin the first. Although, I am more of a poet, so my instinct is to write short and sweet. A poem. My gut tells me to just write anything, as long as my pen is to paper.
Please write more! You have a beautiful style of writing and I love your concepts. On Instagram would also be welcome!
Enjoy the evening-?
The Great Interruptor has done just the opposite: it has inspired me to hold on tighter to my artistic pursuits. I completed National Poetry Writing Month, NaPoWriMo, 30 poems in 30 days, in April and am 35 days into #The100DayProject (April 7 – July 15, the art is up to the individual so I am continuing to write, #100DaysOfLackadaisicalPoetry). I’m still working (the only person on site/in office) and my sister tested “inconclusive – presumed positive” so my artistic goals are my ride through The Great Interruptor.
Like you, I am finding more time to write, tell stories, mostly children’s and brewing ideas into my head. Bubbling over, sometimes. Thank you for your wonderful words that keep me inspired. And to the interrupter or as the grand kids say, Raptor!
Marg from Queensland, Australia.
Oh what a deep topic, one that I don’t even want to attempt to answer…Suffice to say on the weekend when walking with my husband and adult daughter these words must have creeped out from some dark, burdened crevice and I heard myself say….”my work life has been a lie, a sham, a total waste of my time, and so not authentic, always pretending….so my limiting beliefs about myself have impeded my to live a more aligned, creative life instead of that horrible Corporate machine I tried to make a go of”. I feel deeply saddened, and the COVID-19 interruption has been the space to this deep realization, and actually verbalise it….Don’t yet know what the next step will be! Olimpia
You are right! I was unusually inspired by Lyn’s post. I am so glad to hear that you have found the space you needed to reflect, even if unexpected. Olimpia, what would you like to do instead? What makes you happy? I’m curious to see in what direction your creative spark is nudging you. It’s detrimental when your work doesn’t align with your heart and purpose. I’ve been there (it’s much better now, but still a work in progress) and I’m glad that you are empowered to listen and act on what you are able to give words to.
I am attempting to handle it better now by focusing on that which brings me joy and focusing on what I can control with regard to helping me address some of the risk factors that make me vulnerable to the “great interrupter”.
Thank you for writing so expressively, what some of us can’t write, but can feel. That is a great gift of yours.
Good evening;
Being a visual artist who is an introvert and a loner has not impeded me in adjusting to the current Corona virus conditions.
I have been fortunate to and continue to be healthy I did not change my schedule, I continued with my regular hygiene in showering and shaving and smelling good and wearing actual clothes be it for my art or going out to do my necessary errands.
The current conditions which are now into it’s 8th week as my last art event was March 11th; continue for me but I’m always busy with my art, my exercise in bike rides and reading my art books and magazines.
Please stay safe and well
Regards
John-David Powell (JD)
Yes
Interruption
Of life
During
Isolation
Not sure
Why I
Have
Allowed it in
Who let it in
I live alone
In one room
Yet I somehow
Allowed it
To interrupt
My art making
Thank you for sharing this.
Love the nickname “The Great Interrupter”, very befitting! I am one of your readers that likes the stories.
You are SO inspiring !! As I reach old age with trepidation, I read your words and am comforted that life and it’s goals are important still. Thank you !!
Many times!
Yes, most decidedly so!
I have never understood the fascination with (on screen) Gaming but while my life has been Greatly Interrupted by this pandemic, I have been reading myself numb. And it’s all rubbish, ‘gaming’ in the written word – useless, non-productive, nonsense. As soon as I finish the current book (today), I shall turn a new leaf! I will pick up on my writing and my art until I can eventually be allowed to go home.
Excellent writing again – Thank You!
Your photos have a very short shelf life in our minds. Your words do not. Keep writing. And, thank you.
The Great Interrupter quickly changed our holidays in Patagonia, Argentina. My husband and I had to cancel our trip to visit my elder sister. The country went on a quick and forced quarantine that proved to save many lives but we had to book our flights home to Canada much earlier than expected. On arrival in Argentina early February, I had experienced a lot of creativity, sketching and painting every day in Buenos Aires. The river and its ever changing colours, the sail boats and para-sailing on late afternoons and weekends, lively cafes, all was a feast to my artistic side. Once in Patagonia, the hills and meadows, the gauchos and horses provided another boost of creativityt. Suddenly, everything unraveled and as we worried about how to deal with the uncertainties brought over by the Great Interrupter, my creative side suddenly collapsed. It still hasn’t returned but I’ve come to terms with our isolation. I am unable to see and embrace my daughter, I cannot make any sort of travel plans for the future but we are grateful to be safe and not to have to worry about how to put food on the table.
I like expression “writer’s perfume”. Really nice post, deserve to be shared. Keep up the good work.
I found myself identifying with some of what you’ve written here. I am one of the lucky ones who is able to continue working, albeit from home, so I don’t have large blocks of free time to fill. When I’m not working, I split my time between the guilty pleasures of Netflix, learning to cook more gluten-free meals, watching some of Shakespeare’s plays on the Stratford Festival website, and sorting through my mostly neglected wardrobe. I haven’t felt compelled to write, or even take photos but I feel there are some changes taking place in my thinking, mostly around how my money has been spent up until this point, and what is really necessary to enjoy my life. Part of me can’t wait for life to open up again, and part of me feels like I would be fine if it stayed like this for a while.
How interesting the way our early experiences create these echoes in our lives — your pointing to the lingering effects of disappointment has me looking at what some of the emotional resonance of this odd time traces back to other times, other eras of my life.
I’m so glad you’re in a period of rampant writing! Your stories and musings are golden — yet another way you express your unique way of seeing and connecting things in such a way that the rest of us say “Ah, yes, of course…” because you connect the polka dots for us.
As for my Great Interrupter, that’s historically been a self-imposed phenomenon. This pandemic-induced strangeness is scary and sad — and yet also is a nudge from the Universe reminding me we all have a finite time here. The artistic expression bubbling up for me is a slower kind that feels more like a discovery process than a directed means to an end. I replaced the bridge on my violin (thank you, YouTube) and am enjoying playing again for the first time in years. I’m giving myself room to play however I do, rather than judging it. I’m having morning dance parties for one in the privacy of my office in our Chicago apartment. I’m writing more as well. It feels like a new creative phase of my moon, even as I deal with the worries and fears and dark moments.
Thanks for sparking some new thoughts this morning. You’re a phenomenon. I wish we could have lunch over wine and talk about writing. Have a gorgeous day, you fabulous Icon, you.
You are so much more than an fashion icon / “influencer”. Thank you for sharing (and writing) your thoughts about the Great Interrupter. After reading your post, I thought: “I have been my “Great Interrupter”.” The pursuit of the right moment has been the greatest waste of time, energy and concentration of my life. Off I go…
I am an artist working in wire and paper and have been wonderfully productive during this pandemic. I live alone, so the physical lack of people in my life hasn’t been out of the ordinary– except– and a big one– seeing my son who lives nearby. We’ve taken to having meet ‘n’ greets on the sidewalk in front of his apartment.
In my studio, with all the galleries and museum stores that carry my artwork shuttered, I’ve finally had the time to experiment and try out ideas that have been on paper or in my head for months if not years. And that has been very rewarding.
Reaction to confinement can be a matter of perspective, with a few qualifiers: that one is healthy, that one accepts the science of this pandemic, and that one is happy in solitude. I am most fortunate that my thoughts and needs align with my environment.
“Great Interrupter” is a good name for our current situation. In my experience, my life has only been interrupted once in a big way. I didn’t have enough money for my graduate degree, for which I had already been accepted. So, I took time off to work. That was the interruption. During the time off working I was led to other educational pursuits to support my job, and then married and supported husband through medical school, and then ended up with graduate work in a totally different field. I guess my interruption was more like a major change of plans. I don’t regret the path I followed for it led me to unexpected and wonderful experiences in life. On the other hand, I still wistfully try to practice my original graduate pursuits by continuing to study in that field on my own, and I am 79 years old now. I believe this great interruption is going to change the plans of many in our country, and in the world, for that matter. But, it’s like planning a trip to Italy and landing in Holland. Even though you will miss the coliseum you will have all those wonderful windmills and tulips. The goal is to make the best with what life deals you while trying to maintain true to your own spirit.
Your blog causes me to think about myself. That is good. Imagine how you are still influencing so many people, but in a different way than you had originally planned to do. You are in another country from your intended destination.
Great approach!!! Your blog is a journey in itself, so this change leads it to flow differently. Now facing the sea, I doodle, paint, read and write. As some paintings are held in closed exhibitions, it’s time to make new ones.
I still think of nice summer clothes, but far less, in a rather nonchalant way….. Who knows what the future will be ….
I love this post! Thank you for bringing a sliver of light into a dreary day! I struggle with myself these days trying to find my lost intelligence. Maybe just too many game shows and repeat broadcasts?? Your writing and style brings my brain function back to normal and is very appreciated (at least by me). Thank you again!
As for your last line, yes! It took me some time to learn how to be resilient and find my way. If the alternate to finding my way is to allow disappointment or impediment to fester into despair and through that be stopped, then I am required to find my way through, around, or over the interruption or disruption. I am required to let it inform me, to sit with it, to allow it to teach and change me. This way I can bend, but I do not break. Not only that, but I have seen that the situation or disappointment may carry gifts within it, and those carry me forward in joy, purpose and gratitude. I get to share those with others, and I can appreciate more fully what others are thoughtfully sharing of themselves as they walk through their experiences. This encourages me.
I have seen that interruption requires a thoughtful response, and in that response I get to make decisions which lead to actions. This morning, I heard something that resonated in regard to what happens during the season of requirement, of being faced with the necessity of response:
“Entitlement asks, ‘Why did this bad thing happen to me?’ Battling entitlement is saying, ‘What do I do with this, and how can I make meaning, and why WOULDN’T this happen to me?’ The question is not ‘why’, but ‘where’. It is looking for and seeing the opportunity and the benefit in the disruption.” (via author Whitney Johnson during an online presentation).
For me, that ‘why’ is always a great place to begin. I don’t pretend that interruptions or disruptions are pleasant or painless or that they reflexively warrant a cheerful response. I always need time to adjust, to recalibrate and to gain perspective so that I can find my way through.
It is true that repeat or singularly deep disappointment or disadvantage brings us back to that point of reserve and holding back a part of ourselves. This reserve may also be holding back so that we won’t, as we fear, lose our very selves even if we lose something that we deeply cherish; a hope, a dream, our expectations of our right to define ‘normal’, a favorite part of our abilities, or a person. From acting within these cherished things, I believe, we also derive purpose and fulfillment, meaning. Who and what are we without them?
I find in this line, “It’s untenable for me and disrespectful of others to waste anything I have right now,” and in your writing of this piece, a full expression of the remark I heard this morning. Those interruptions may bring within them gifts, and those are not to be wasted.
Maybe those situations and experiences feed and inform that creative expression, the purpose and fulfillment, and perhaps it is that the deeper the disappointment the more felt the expression as it manifests through creativity. Maybe these are the gifts. My first commission is to find my way through the disappointment, through whatever interruption or disruption visits itself upon me, until I am brought through it to a point of resolved action and expressive joy. I find that on the other side of it, I am changed. That is how I find my way, because it is as you have said, ‘…we can decide not to be our own greatest interruptors.’
What I see in the expression of yourself in your writing is the beautiful inner garment and bright sharp inner mind; we have seen this creatively and attractively shine in other seasons and other ways. In this season you sparkle even more, as you are turned this way and that in the light, we can see yet other facets. I’m glad to see them brought forward! I’m so proud of you for finding your way through to that expression, and thank you for sharing the gifts you have been given. I enjoy your writing. It is well put together, fitted, thought provoking and encouraging, and I’m so glad that you are here.
Oh my thanks so much for this lovely comment
You described exactly what I’ve become in your paragraph on being your own interrupter during this time. In the midst of working on a specific creative project I interrupt myself with thoughts I should be working out or I want a snack. Thank you for giving it a name and making me conscious of this behavior.
Creative ideas, then wandering thoughts come to mind anytime I sit down and try to read now. In typing this I just realized that this is not new behavior for me! This would usually happen when I’m driving and that is rare these days. Reading has become my new driving. Probably safer this way, even if it is frustrating.
Masks, masks, masks and more of same. I ‘normally’ would be sewing clothes at this time. FYI, I do not make any money off the masks I sew so this interruption is not an economic opportunity for me but is a very big sentimental one. My relationship with my sewing machine(s , I now have 5) also continues to amaze me.
I haven’t tried it yet but maybe after this post, I’ll give it a try!
Reading your sharing and the comments really makes me feel serene and touching!
Loved the post and your considerations. Inspiring.
Thank you.
I am still grappling with it. This was going to be a pivotal year for me, and more than anything I was ready to expand my world. I was coming out of a consuming time in my personal life, and my two college age children were supposed to head off to college, leaving me with only one child at home to care for. With the extra time, I was hoping to make some more progress on my late blooming music career, begin a collaboration with another woman on the writing of a new musical, and expand both socially and intellectually. Now that we have the Great Interrupter, much is on hold for the time being. It’s difficult to anticipate the steps to take next, with the world changing by the second. I am just now beginning to think about how I can still expand in the midst of this constricting time.
The Great Interrupter. What a perfect label . I enjoy how you put everything into perspective.
I’m a plush maker. I usually have shows and conventions at this time of year. But that is not happening. So the interruption has forced me to turn to things that have been very neglected…like my online store. Now, there are other things that need attention too, but here, I am the interrupter. I enjoy drawing and sketching, but interrupted it for the sake of needing to attend to a creative business. I have a book to work on, but it too has been interrupted.
When you have a creative business, where you are focusing on making things for money, if you don’t balance it out properly, you can get burnt out and the love will be gone. But there are other times you just need to create for the sake of creating…and I have to allow that back into my life. And what better time than now?
Thank you.
Well Said.