24 Days of Making, Doing, and Being: December 22
Frozen winter rivers of creative flow.
Welcome to 24 Days of Making, Doing, and Being, a digital Advent calendar for slowing down and making space for presence, creativity, and gratitude. Thank you for being here. If you missed a day you can catch up here.
Glad fjärde advent.
It’s the fourth of Advent, which means the time of this fifth season is dwindling.
The winter solstice always feels a little bittersweet to me. I love knowing that the sun is returning, but part of me craves to just sit in that pause for a little longer. It’s exactly how I feel about these final days before any festivities. I want to draw them out, make them last. Let the Advent candle flicker a little longer.
On Thursday, I finally felt like I had found my way to some form of creative flow. I stayed in the studio until 6pm simply because I had lost track of time. I drew funny festive animals in my notebook (some had teeth), and I made two papercuts. I kept writing. It was as if finally the floodgates had opened.
This is the result of external obligations going away. There aren’t that many emails to respond to, the work calendar is empty. It feels like focus can solely be on what I want it to be on. But it’s also the result of more than three weeks of daily committed writing. While the idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit is a myth1, I often feel that creatively speaking, the timeframe does ring true. Three weeks is enough time to get past your own resistance and start to see some patterns. It’s enough time to clean out all the cobwebs and get to a new place where unexpected things begin to happen. It’s enough time to surprise yourself.