Labor, labor, labor. New moon. (thoughts on the creative process)

I have been obsessing about the creative process lately. It is always like this with me – struggles and bursts of ideas lead to more struggles. I tell her "listen". "Listen ". But she does not. I spin in circles. We spin in circles. Good ideas come and go as if they were mere waves on the waterfront of my mind. I don't even notice them. The recipe remains a mystery, I must come up with it myself.

Caught up in this kind of circling, it is always a challenge to move because there are no tangible results. I dream of my own studio. But I know I will take her there. She will want to open everything. She will want to tear everything. She will want to spill everything. I will want to let her. Just like I want to let her do that here, and I do. But I should not. There is carpet. The carpet of our home. As the caretaker of this carpet, I am also the one to clean it.

As the day progresses, frustration and negativity bubble. Nothing is done. Finally we get dressed and go out in the freezing cold on the coldest day of the winter here at the edge of New York City. As we walk to the store and as I push the carriage through the slushy ice, its little wheels unable to take the friction of the frozen snow, I hear my daughter muttering something to me. "Louder, I can't hear you". She points up. I look toward the perfectly clear darkening sky, visibility increased by the frigidity of the air, to see the tiny sliver of a moon that must've just "risen" in the hour before sunset. It is the thinnest most delicate moon I have seen in a long, long time. Perhaps ever. Later I discover that the moon in fact was setting, trailing behind and shadowing the sun. What an elusive, tricky move, dearest moon. How subtly capable you are to tug at our deepest of emotions. 

Gazing at the wispy crescent, I stop to snap a picture as bewildered drivers pass by and wonder who is that mother who would take her 2 and 1/2 year old out at 10F and walk. But it all starts to make sense to me. Creativity will come. The project will come. The beauty of the moment softens the creases around my eyes. I let go. Productivity is present after all. The birth of the piece will happen. It'll come tiny and barely detectable in the grand scheme of things, announced by my daughter.