Day 4 of Creative Camp

Day 4 of taking myself to Creative Camp.

I’m a creative director rebuilding my own creativity practice with 30 days of creative adventures. And you’re invited to join me.

By Day 4, I'm starting to feel the first week of camp fatigue.

It’s a good tired — sun-kissed and happy — but it reminds me that Creative Camp is not just about inspiration. It’s about endurance. Building stamina. Returning to the practice even when the novelty wears off.

And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do Creative Camp.

A few years ago, while I was researching and writing my book, while recording my podcast and running my business, I hit creative wall. So I turned to triathlon training.

Partly because I had this weird hunch it was going to teach me something about creativity I couldn’t learn any other way.

And it did.

Before my first triathlon, I had never been an athlete. Ever.

I used to joke that I would rather get a root canal than go for a run. I did not understand people who ran for pleasure. Like, who goes on vacation and wakes up at the buttcrack of dawn to run a 5K before breakfast?

Me, apparently. 😂

IT’S ME. HI. I’M THE VACAY RUNNER. IT’S ME.

Then one day I turned 40 and became a first-time triathlete. Life loves a plot twist.

Sometimes the things I’m most convinced are “not me” end up becoming my best teachers. Or the places I think I don’t belong become my favorite places.

But the way I built my late-in-life athletic practice was not through pain. It was through ease.

Rule #2, before I knew it was Rule #2: The easier, the better.

If you hate your training sessions, you’re never going back.

So I learned how to collect days.

Not to be the best. Not with pain-and-gain nonsense. Just show up. Make it easy. Find the fun. Log the day. Keep going.

That’s the beauty of a practice.

The lowercase-j journey really is the destination.

And that’s what I'm carrying into Day 4.

Today’s randomly generated prompt is:

Balance.
Music.
Limit.

This is my first time getting the "Limit" twist.

Limit is about choosing less on purpose. One color. One tool. One subject. One ingredient.

So immediately, I interpret today's limit as one instrument.

The piano.

Earlier today, I saw a thread asking:

"What piece of furniture has followed you through every move?"

For me, it’s this piano. My Clavinova, which my dad brought home in 1987 and which has somehow followed me through every apartment, every move, every version of my life. So, it feels right to return to the piano.

But now I'm stuck on the word balance.

What am I supposed to balance? A chord is a form of balance, right?

I start thinking about writing a cute lil' Creative Camp theme song with some nice "balanced" chords but I am overcome by the cringe of it all.

Then I remember Day 2: the tattered old songbook I turned into art.

And Rule #4 shows up again: Look for the YES AND!

What if I returned to this old piano for a creative callback?

Suddenly, it feels like the first week of camp is talking to itself.

On Day 2, I turned this songbook into art. On Day 4, I turn the art back into song. 😍

So I sit down to sight read. (And let me be clear, I am about as talented a pianist as I am a runner. 😉)

Piano is pure play for me. Like running, it’s something I had to stop making about being good. I am not here to be impressive.

I am here to return to the practice. To make it easy enough to come back and collect the day.

So while I stumble through the chords, Rule #3 is echoing in my mind: Process over product.

Yes, it sounds like the audition for an audio version of Nailed It! (the Netflix show about epic Pinterest fails, for the unitiated).

Also yes, the background music you hear in this video (at the end), very imperfectly playing from this old songbook, is me!

Triple yes? By the end, when I slow down and just have fun, it feels so good in my fingers, I have tears in my eyes.

Not because I played it perfectly.

Because I absolutely did not.

But because I surprised myself.

Because I let myself play badly and still feel proud.

And it reminds me of training. The beauty of collecting days.
Easy days. Tired days. 13-minute-mile days (which are most days). It's about more than running. It’s about returning. And creativity is the same.

You don’t build a creative practice by waiting for the perfect idea.

You build it by returning.

So here’s Day 4: a return to Day 2 and the many days that came before it, too.

Welcome to camp.