Midsummer Creative Retreat: Day 2
Taking the ferry to Letgo Island.
Welcome to the Isles of Curiosity and Wonder for our special digital midsummer creative retreat running June 20-24. If you’re just joining us, the archives can be found here. This retreat is offered to all subscribers, but as a thank you for helping to make it happen, paid subscribers have access to the audio version. Thank you to all of you for being here!
Hello friends,
Welcome to Day 2 of our creative midsummer retreat here on the Isles of Curiosity and Wonder. Today we’re going to take a day trip to Letgo Island. We’ll meet at the ferry dock and take the boat through the Sea of Ideas. Bring your binoculars, because there’s always good wildlife to be spotted.
If you’re new to the archipelago, rest assured that the Isles of Curiosity and Wonder Ferry System is incredibly reliable. Timetables are available for free. Make sure to check the backside of the timetable, as each boat features a different poem and illustration. In fact most people just get the timetables for the art, as the ferry runs so regularly that a schedule is unnecessary. Just show up!
Ferry tickets can be purchased at the ferry dock or on board. All of our ferries are equipped with standard seating and viewing decks, but you’ll also find desks and creative studios aboard. They’re available on a first-come-first serve basis, but they rarely fill up so we’re confident that you can snag a spot if you want one. You may want to keep your creative endeavors to one crossing (everyone knows the benefit of a good constraint), or you may want to stay longer. Unlike other ferry systems which require you to disembark once the vessel has landed, we understand that it can be a bit of a nuisance to cut your creative flow and our day passes allow you to stay on the ferry for as many crossings as you like.
If you’re feeling peckish, stop by the ferry cafe, which serves freshly baked pastries as well as excellent coffee.
Once we arrive at Letgo Island we’ll spend a few hours there, which will allow you to explore the local trail system. Letgo Island is most well-known for its beaches, and it has some of the calmest waters in the Sea of Ideas. You’ll find that most of the beaches have designated floating areas. If you’re in one of these, no lap swimming is allowed, as we like to ensure an unproductive state of existence.
In her beautiful book On Island Time: A Traveler’s Atlas, the late Chandler O’Leary wrote, “Instead of the coffee shop, the ferry is often my “third place,” where I go to clear my head or work out new ideas…”
O’Leary was writing about the ferries in our backyard, and I know them well1. I too love taking a ferry. Once you’re aboard, there’s a particular creative energy at play. I’ve felt it on ferries in other parts of the world too. There’s something about the transition between one place and another, making you disconnected and untethered for a short moment, welcoming in a sense of potential and expansiveness. Similar to how one used to feel on airplanes, before airplanes had wifi and you could check your email.
But back to third places. Coined in the 1980s by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, a third place is neither work, nor home. It is a neutral place where people can gather and where ideas and conversation can flow. A third place is a casual place. There isn’t anything expected of you, and you can just exist. Cafes, libraries, public parks—these are all third places, marked by a “playful mood” and, as Oldenburg wrote, “the heart of a community's social vitality.”
I’d argue that they’re essential for creative practice too, places where you’re removed from the demands of everyday life (home) as well as the expectations of productivity (work). You just might say that they are another form of an in-between place. An island of sorts.
A third place can also be a way of catapulting yourself into your creative process, the thing that gives you a little kickstart when you’re feeling a little sluggish to get going. You’re not bogged down by the to-do list of home, and you’re also not in a place which demands that you get something done. Instead, you’re in a place that can facilitate flow. A place where ideas can percolate and rise to the surface. A place where you can let go.
In some ways, I think that summer can be a bit of a third place. Even if we’re not on vacation, there’s something particular to summer energy, the sense of constant movement, a little bit of release of the regular schedule, the space to play. Summer after all is a time for wild experimentation. Deadlines? You have autumn for that.
This is the time to dive in and just see what happens. The time to let go.
But it’s not just the place that matters, it’s what you do once you’re there.
In Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott recounts a formula that Alice Adams would use to write a short story. In this case, the formula is ABDCE: Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. I’ve never written any short stories myself, but I can see how this would be a useful formula to follow.
Lamott has this to say:
“A formula can be a great way to get started. And it feels so great to finally dive into the water; maybe you splash around and flail for a while, but at least you’re in. Then you start doing whatever stroke you remember how to do, and you get this scared feeling inside you—of how hard it is and how far there is to go—but you’re in, and you’re afloat, and you’re moving.”
In this beautiful description, it’s not so much the exact formula that matters, it’s the fact that it allows you to dive in. We all have formulas of various kinds, the structures by which we come to our creative work. The scaffolding that lets us step in and get started, even when we don’t know what we’re doing, or where we are headed with something.
A formula might not seem like it fits with the idea of letting go and seeing what happens. But on the contrary: what if your formula wasn’t about what you would create but instead about how you would create?
A few questions to ponder today:
What is your formula for getting started?
What is your creative third place?
What would it feel like to jump into your creative process and just float?
In the sometimes turbulent waters of creativity, it doesn’t matter where you’re going.
The most important thing is that you’re in.
-Anna
ps: you can address any Isles of Curiosity and Wonder musings to hello@creativefuelcollective.com
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