Create Anyway

Even (especially?) when your 2 year old wakes up early from her nap

Mar 29, 2023

Being on Ashlee Gadd’s launch team for Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood (available now!) has been one of my favorite parts of 2023 to date — an experience that fueled creativity, fed souls, and encouraged women in their crafts. It was a month full of I love that / This is what stuck out to me / Me too! / I can relate.

In Birmingham, AL pollen coats everything with a thin dusting of yellow in early Spring. I mop my porch twice, daily, and it’s not enough. By day’s end if I walk across the porch with sneakers, I leave a trail behind and track yellow into the house. Pollen brings allergies (my poor kiddos). It wreaked havoc on the 2 year old’s nap last week. I was excited to sit down and write spine poetry with the launch team during said nap time. (Reader, it didn’t happen how I imagined). After retrieving an inconsolable 2 year old, we headed to the playroom. Armed with milk and tiles, the toddler was (mostly) content. Armed with inspiration and encouragement, I told myself it was important to create in the margins.

We were creating together — she tiles and me poetry. It matters.

Questions

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Nobody will tell you this but me:
addicted to busy
(is) the broken way,
(you’ll miss) the beauty of motherhood.
(You’ll need) grit 
(to be) present-over-perfect.

What kind of woman
((and mother) am I) becoming?
(Can I) thrive 
(in) the middle place?
Why not me?

Rhythms of rest
(slow me down to) savor
(my) homemade life,
(to see) the magic of motherhood
(in this) house of light.
(I am) in His image,
(and He) whispers,
“You are free
(to) create anyway.”