Making Art and Writing from Nothing

My morning isn’t really complete without a cappuccino from my favorite café downtown. I actually have a machine at home that makes them (thanks to my coffee-crazy son) but I seem to like the social part of it.

And I like the part where I’m not at home realizing I haven’t vacuumed in over a month. At the café, I can meet friends, see friends, or just read a book in public.

A man in his seventies once interrupted my public-book-reading to favorably comment on the strangeness of seeing someone reading something on paper in this day-and-age. I felt like I had taken out my pocket-watch or something but I laughed, heartily agreed in modern lingo, “I know, right?” and resumed my vintage activity.

While apparently strange nowadays, I see getting a coffee and hanging out as the ideal time to “do nothing” and by “nothing” I don’t really mean nothing, I mean nothing productive.

We are often so consumed with the idea that we need to be productive, that if we aren’t making money or acting “busy” it might feel like we are being lazy. But really, it’s actually called living our lives.

Before you call me lazy or unproductive, I’ll mention that it’s not all day. I wish.

I’m talking like a half-an-hour here and there. It’s not a lot to ask. And it’s not like someone with two teen boys has more than a half hour at a time anyway. You can do nothing and still be productive, don’t worry.

I know, it’s hard to make time for doing nothing. But you can’t ever make time for this, because you can’t make time. But you can prioritize the time to take a few minutes to ‘do nothing’ here and there.

It means you are consciously saying to yourself (and anyone noticing your weirdness at the café) that you value this nothing-ness. I never regret it.

Art and Writing

Doing nothing allows creativity to surge a bit sometimes. And I imagine the neurons that are busy doing other things the rest of the day having a second to wander around and find new connections.

But then, if you become inspired, and make some art, or write some fiction or poetry, it can induce the same guilt that “doing nothing” creates.

It’s because art and writing can be so distantly productive, in other words, not making money, now or ever, or taking a long time. (Writing for a newspaper or magazine however, does feel immediately productive, because you’ll invoice when you turn in the article. It’s why so many of us do that too.)

When I was in my graduate program, I had the excuse that making art, poetry and fiction writing was for credit and a degree.

Now I have to make my own excuses. Which I do.

It’s one of my priorities, along with doing nothing and potentially productive activities like teaching, journalism, Tarot reading (yes, I do that too!) dating my husband, doing things with friends, and driving kids around everywhere and spending whatever time with them they will give me, because they will be moved away in a few years.

If they remember how we did nothing, I’ll be satisfied.