CREATIVE SPIRITS: Time to create possibility

The following first appeared in encore's Next Chapter newsletter. Sign up to follow and join encore's return to the real world.

Sometimes I feel like a pot of water and social media is a stove top upon which I sit at either a constant simmer or rolling boil that spits and bubbles over, destined to lose steam as it continues to rise and, eventually, evaporates. Leaving nothing but a scorched pot behind.

If that sentiment resonates with you, let’s talk for a sec:

The reason I care about encore is because it represents an opportunity (actually, many opportunities) to escape a cycle that will inevitably lead to an empty pot. If you, too, feel like you’re dangerously close to empty, I ask: Where and how do you refill your cup … err pot, or whatever holds the water, or energy, or soul, that keeps you cooking?

For me, and maybe for you, possibility keeps water in my pot. And no one knows possibility better than a creative spirit. Possibility is on a blank canvas or an empty page, but it’s also in an old dilapidated house; it’s in rusted cans and shattered glass; it’s in torn and tattered clothes; it’s in a stack of books or a pile of shoes; hell, it’s even in a broken system full of broken promises, broken hearts, and broken sense of self.

We have seen powerful meaning emerge from creative spirits who manage to find possibility in what seems beyond use, hope, or repair. And I’m not just talking about those folks who can write prose or melodies; I’m not just talking about people with paint-stained fingers or bits of dried clay under their nails; I’m not just talking about those who literally create the tangible and tactile; I’m talking about you, your family, your friends, your enemies, your neighbors, your dentist … all of us.

We all have this ability within us to create meaning and possibility around us. At least, that’s what the artist, the musician, the writer, the chef, the historian, the parent, the child, and the creative spirits continue to remind us:

There is time to create possibility.

It is always time to create possibility.

It is time to create possibility.

Finally, I want to share this quote I earmarked recently from Wilmington-based author Jason Mott’s “Hell of a Book”:

“Maybe that’s what time is for: to give meaning to the things we do; to create a context in which we can linger in something until, finally, we have given it something invaluable, something that we can never get back: time. And once we’ve invested the most precious commodity that we will ever have, it suddenly has meaning and importance. So maybe time is just how we measure meaning. Maybe time is how we best measure love.” 

Wishing love and time to your creative spirit,

Shannon Rae Gentry

executive director & human person