Creating Begins With Small Acts
ServiceSpace
--Jyoti
2 minute read
Mar 27, 2020

 

If shelter-in-place is causing you anxiety, here are a few suggestions that might offer you one way out of it. Treat it as a time to reclaim your creative self - sing, dance, play or make music, paint, cook, tailor, embroider, read, write, make photo albums and collages, bake, sculpt with clay, flour, even aluminum foil, quilt, re-purpose old favorite clothes by joining square cut pieces into bags or quilted throws, knit, make jewellry, write letters, or poems, dress up and take turns to do family photo shoots, make home movies with mini biographies or personal expertise, study, enroll in an online class and learn what you always wanted to but didn’t have the time to, meditate, create a self-designed at-home retreat, have a story telling circle - real or online, try a new software to make infographics or tell a digital story, research something you are curious about, teach a kid something you know, rearrange furniture, polish old silver or a piece of furniture, paint your walls, draw chalk murals on the pavement, sketch each other’s portraits, paint your nails, pickle your produce, or think of what you enjoyed doing once but haven’t had the time to do in a while. Call someone to check in on them or catchup on your sleep.

If you are stepping out to make a grocery store run - call your neighbors first and ask if you can pick up something for them too while you are there. Maybe it is the perfect time to plant your own food in your yard or containers. You already have seeds in your kitchen (corriandar, methi/fenugreek, beans and lentils, tec. Did you know that you can literally grow a tomato plant by burying a slice of fresh tomato with seeds in it?) The harvest will be ready in 3 weeks (methi) to 3 months (cucumbers, gourds). Springtime is for renewal and flavorful homegrown food could be a possible harvest of this sheltering.

Isolated is not alone - it is in solidarity.

What to do with your painting, you ask? Mail it to someone who might appreciate a bit of color. Give it your neighbor as a thank you note. Use it for birthday cards all through the year. Write a poem on its back and hand it to your mother. Imagine how your creativity has the power to create stronger families and communities, along with a more creative self. That is a far better future than the gallows-humor memes I have seen lately about divorces from both partners working from home, or families torn apart because they were confined together. Just as fear and panic are contagious, so is calm and creative. We get to create it with our everyday small acts. We can do it.

 

Posted by Jyoti on Mar 27, 2020


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