#57: Smashing the reset button.

We all have funks. This is how I handle mine.

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Midmorning Thanksgiving, I hit a wall.

And it had all started out so well.

After an early-hours, empty-like-I-owned-the-place hike in Great Falls, I came home to a quiet house of sleeping college kids. It would be several hours before they emerged like bed-head bears from their darkened caves. Even more hours before my mom, sister, and brother-in-law arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. Not only did I have a great day ahead, I also got some time to myself?! Sitting down at my kitchen island with a cup of tea, I turned my baseball cap around backwards, tucking in to edit a TL post. 

Although cozy with love at having my babies around, I was also… rusty. Rusty at the family-at-home thing. Re-establishing a kid-focused routine took (more than) a minute. Doctor’s appointments. Christmas decorating. Flat-tire fixing. Car sharing. Grocery shopping. Calendar planning. 

A sign of the chaos… I mean, there are only THREE of us!

The recalibration was also affecting my creativity. During a normal TL week, Leona gives me a prompt to fill out a too-thin section of my draft. I then bang out a spirited paragraph or two in response. But that morning, looking out my kitchen window at the birds flitting branch to branch, I had nothing. Nada. Zip.

I had no clue what else to say.

Then, like clockwork, an old familiar feeling sprouted at the base of my neck. I rubbed my face as if trying to hide from it, but obviously you can’t hide from something inside of you. So the feeling began its slow wet arcs through my brain, leaving a slimy trail behind it. The slippery snake of self-doubt had arrived just in time for the holidays.

“Wait, if I can’t think of something else for this post, maybe I will not be able to think of ideas for any other posts… like… ever again. We’ve written 56 ideas… How will I possibly come up with anymore? OH GOD. I’m sunk.”

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Leona worked her magic and pulled a rabbit (i.e. post) out of the hat.

But I was still shaken. And worried. While practicing what I preach and not chasing the feeling away like a pitchfork-armed mob, I didn’t want to linger in that state for too long either. I wanted to balance feeling my feels with some action. 

So I rummaged around in my mental toolkit for a move that would feel like a hand smashing a giant reset button.

Time for a visit to the National Gallery of Art. 

While the kids slept and Black Friday shoppers filled their physical and digital carts, I headed downtown. Timing my arrival with the Smithsonian’s 10am opening, I hightailed it early to take advantage of the uncrowded DC streets. Securing a rockstar parking space along Independence Ave, I tucked my coffee thermos into my tote bag and jaywalked across the empty asphalt.

Right away, I knew I had made the right decision. I could have sat on the bench in the East Wing mezzanine forever — the one where the giant Calder mobile floats. 

(Photo via Hi, I’m Ashley.)

The soft light of that wide room, along with the surreal creature turning slowly within it — as if the entire room was actually 100ft under water — began to pull me into spaciousness… out of the tight grasp of the self-doubt snake.

But I was trying to not just press but SMASH the reset button. 

I wonder what the docents thought when they saw a middle-aged woman hurdle herself through the empty corridors into the “Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper” exhibit…

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Rothko is known primarily for his ginormous color-block paintings on canvas, exhibited in museums throughout the world. 

I make a point of seeking these out wherever I travel. Though I’ve talked at length about how I feel underdeveloped creatively, these vibrating walls of color never cease to move me.

But the Rothkos of this exhibit were an eyebrow-raising surprise. Works no larger than a coffee-table book. Paintings of landscapes. Paintings of figures. Paintings of… I-haven’t-a-clue.

Yep, these’s are Rothko’s too.

It completely blew apart my hidebound understanding of what a Rothko was. 

It also blew apart my fear that I’d never come up with another good post. 

Seeing the variety of Rothko’s work, it’s clear he never said, “Well, there’s nothing left to paint! Let me pack up my brushes and turpentine, sell my studio space and become a bus driver.” No, he just kept on exploring, changing, evolving what he created… because he was evolving himself. New ways of creating unfolded for him along the way, driven by his relentless compulsion to capture what it means to be human.

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Less than 24 hours later I’m perched in the top of my treehouse, happily plowing through this draft.

The Rothko exhibit helped me see that a few days of muddled creativity and a loss in confidence were not the end of my creative journey. They were a stop along the way. One I will unwillingly but most certainly revisit many times in the years ahead. 

And during those stretches, I’ll look again for the “break glass in case of emergency” reset button, and not hesitate to smash the hell out of it.

If you’re anything like me, when you start to feel down, you have two contrasting inner dialogues.

One is unconsolable — oh god, I feel terrible. I’ll never feel good again. I’m a failure. How early is too early to go to bed… with a vodka gimlet.

The other is in denial — it’s no big deal, everyone relax, whatever you do don’t make a scene. Because you’re fine, you’re being dramatic, you have important things to take care of, just ignore it and stick with the plan.

Aka, don’t smash the glass. 

Yes, it feels a little dramatic, but I’ve learned to always smash the glass. To rummage armpit-deep through my Mary Poppins bag of (healthy) coping mechanisms for the one that will turn my day around. Because even if I have to get up an extra hour early, it’s worth it.

I’ve been to the abyss enough, I don’t need to wait to see if it’s really “that bad.” It’s bad enough, and I have vibrant living to get to!

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I don’t reach for my reset button as a way of hiding from my hard times.

Rather, it’s a way of getting just enough distance from the crunchy feeling that I can reflect on it. I’m still in a boat amidst the storm, but I’m no longer drowning in the waves.

That way I can look around and remember:

• How many times I’ve been convinced that I’m well and truly screwed… but somehow made it out.

• How many supports I have at my fingertips — family, friends, nature, sci-fi movies, half-joking cursing-the-heavens text messages with Julie, etc.

• How many times I’ve discovered that, with these supports, I’m capable of far more than I realized.

• And finally, why I still trust the mystery even after all I’ve been through.

Hand glued to the reset button,

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