Jim Henson exposed my shadow.
On being "creatively restless".
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
“Rainbow Connection” by Paul Williams & Kenneth Ascher for Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Movie”
The “Jim Henson Idea Man” documentary fucked me up.
I think that’s what’s going on…
It’s been a couple days now, and I notice this quiet haunting seeping in around the edges of things…like when a dream plants a feeling inside of you that just won’t dissolve as you try to function in your waking life.
Jim Henson’s work looms incredibly large over my generation’s psyche. I was certainly obsessed. And beyond the entertainment, I was obsessed with figuring out how it was all made. When I was young I watched and re-watched a behind-the-scenes video from the public library and fantasized about not just working in the Henson workshop when I grew up…but about BEING Jim Henson when I grew up.
And my life has turned out to include a fairly decent stream of cool theatre sets and chilly television studios, and fun film shoots, and odd animations, and zany musical acts, and crammed-full creature-shops, and dusty costume lockers, and long punchy hours surrounded by out-of-this-world creative talent and, yes, puppets…
But as lovely as this documentary was, some part of me felt extremely...exposed.
“CREATIVELY RESTLESS” is what I wrote in my notebook while we watched…
“Restless creativity” is the way they describe him in the press release.
And this is where the haunting started.
Creativity is not, by definition, a restless act. At least, not for everyone.
But it was for him & it is for me.
Restless.
Lately I’ve been trying to parse the jumble of projects I have going on, or have waiting in the wings. I realize that, as usual, I’m being completely unrealistic at best and more like outright sadistic as my own manager.
I do this to myself in waves.
Then the wave crashes. This time last year I crashed hard. I was in and out of doctors’ offices all summer— and that became fall, then winter, then spring.
There’s just always this pressing urge to keep flowering even while I produce fruit.
[Why, welcome to Capitalist America! You’ll notice financial forces have perverted natural production cycles into eternal extraction machines! CHURN ON, CONTENT QUEEN!]
Yes. But this is not exactly that.
This is a pressure that exists outside of market forces. This is a burning creative desire.
How would you introduce yourself in three words?
I asked the fall ‘22 Image Word Mystery class this question & introduced myself in turn by saying:
“I am: infinite ecstatic longing.”
What I think that meant was: I’m creatively restless.
Or: Longing’s ache compels me forward, reaching a servant’s hand toward the innumerable faces of God and, falling short, landing on a paintbrush. A pen. A lump of clay. A lonely chord.
But being hungry all the time leaves so little room to rest and digest.
Trust me.
So in a thought experiment, I asked: “What if instead of Infinite Ecstatic Longing I am Engaged Spacious Presence?”
Imagining the felt-sense of it honestly makes my head spin even now.
What if???
Can you feel & imagine the difference inside of you? (If so, let’s hug.)
Going from “MORE! MORE! MORE!” to “here, here, here” is the pursuit of many a mystic, of course, but also very helpful for the artist— and inner child— and business person trying to juggle it all.
For the past few weeks, this “what if” question has been resting on my little art altar as a reminder to bring all that reaching, searching, creative ecstasy in and pour it right down at my own feet.
How has that been going?
Well, it’s interesting. For one, it meant that watching a lovely and very tame documentary about one of my creative idols felt a bit…I think the word is “sobering”. He was profoundly prolific— and also, he died mid-stride.
Having brushed up against my own premature mortality more than once, I can’t shake it off.
And yet…my own restlessness adds potential projects to a never-ending list of creative-thing-I’d-like-to-explore. There are books of poetry and 12’ flower sculptures and audio documentaries and illustrated cookbooks and one-woman-shows and…I don’t think I’ll ever change.
But engaged spacious presence tells me that there’s some necessary stillness to be found at the center of my garden of desire.
That’s where I’m trying to sit all the way down and just look around for a minute this month. The center of that garden. Not pushing for the next, and the next, and the next creative project. Just sitting in the center, watering what I’ve already planted and noticing what’s going on with things while they grow.
I’ll be talking more about my effort to stay creatively centered & the projects I’m communing with in coming weeks. But I’m curious—
Are you creatively restless?
Does an infinite, ecstatic longing compel you forward?
What are you longing for?
What three words would you use to introduce yourself?
(The documentary is sweet and I recommend it, though! I don’t blame Jim for exposing my shadow! Have you watched it yet? Let’s discuss.)
xo,
I super know creative restlessness. It’s like an itch under my creative epidermis that can’t and won’t stop and can’t, no matter how thoroughly I scratch, be itched. But it’s changed flavor over the years. It used to be a driving unrelenting force that was more fire hose in my mouth than sipping the nectar of the gods. But for the last 10 plus years, I’ve had to funnel that onslaught into only the few projects that my full time jobs and now my toddler allow me to invest myself in. That kind of self weeding and pruning is very hard but an antidote to my white hot creative combustibility. I must focus the immense tsunami of the need and urge to make things, to make anything, in very specific areas. It’s definitely been an interesting adjustment. But also, if I die today or I die in 50 years, I will always die midstream.
For many decades I wholly identified as creatively restless, and could even tap back into the cellular sense as I read this. It was a place I cherished, but always left me spinning 100 feet off the ground, always a struggle to bring all that energy into embodiment. Forces conspired eventually when I turned 40 and my body said, Hell no you won’t forget about me and MY pace. And after almost a decade of listening (at first kicking a screaming but submitting) I’m glad my body won. It’s less productive, slower, and quieter over here, but the projects feel more sustainable, the creativity more inline with the natural rhythms of life and season.