Create Anyway
Don't let fascism or inhibition hold you back
In the cathedral of the pines a rough arch, a gold shadow, the red walls of my heart expanding in snow. ~from "Cathedral" by Diana Whitney
Every day or two I feel myself washed with a wave of sadness, whose source I can’t pinpoint until I remember: Oh, yeah, it’s winter; Americans are being murdered in the streets by their own government; and the civil rights of all of us are being eroded as constitutional amendments fall like so many dominos. It makes you kinda not want to get out of bed in the morning.
I’m reminded of the time when a dear family friend passed away after the sudden onset of a rapidly progressing illness. I felt outraged that the sun rose the next morning, that we were all supposed to go about our daily business without this bright light in the universe. But I had two babies and a preschooler who didn’t know anything had changed and who depended on me to feed and care for them, no matter what was going on in the outside world. And slowly, over time, in those daily acts of care, healing occurred.
It’s disconcerting to be a human and hold in your mind and heart knowledge of both great tragedy and great wonder. To watch atrocities being committed and then go to work, buy groceries, prepare dinner, hold loved ones. To see the ugliness that humans can perpetrate and create something of beauty. Art can have a role in fighting back against injustice, but it can also be a way of feeding the soul of the artist and the viewer, a balm on the wounded spirit, a way to prevent ourselves from succumbing to the depravity we see all around us.
INSIDE
Earlier this month, my family had the great good fortune of spending ten days in Purto Rico. I love to keep a travel journal whenever I go on vacation, and over my last several trips, I’ve been working to make them more visually appealing, with more images to balance out the writing. But on this trip, like most, we were constantly on the move—sightseeing, snorkeling, and hiking in the jungle—so most of my journaling took place in the evenings, after we’d retired to our quarters. I did, however, manage to sketch from life a few times—at the beach; in the early morning from our guest house porch; and from a viewing platform at the top of a mountain in El Yunque National forest. We’d stopped there for lunch and a rest, and since the boys weren’t in a rush to move on, I pulled out my journal and quickly sketched the view of fog moving in across endless green-shrouded peaks.
A woman walked up beside me, peeked over my shoulder, and said that she wished she had the talent to draw. “I’m just scribbling,” I said, which was literally true (see above), and she repeated her line about lacking talent. I’ve had similar interactions before, and I have a theory about them. I don’t think people actually see what’s in my sketchbook; instead they see the fact that I am drawing in public, where anyone can look over my shoulder and judge my work. It’s not drawing talent they see and envy, it’s a willingness to be publicly bad at something.
I too have this same inhibition, and I have work to overcome it every time I sketch—or write. But when I create anyway, even when I feel self-conscious, something magic happens. Sometimes I get lost in my work and forget about the world around me. Other times, I connect with other people, such as the day a few months ago when I went to a café to practice sketching people. The dining room was crowded and I ended up sharing a table with a stranger. I made myself pull out my sketchbook anyway, and it became a great icebreaker. She and I chatted amiably for an hour while I drew tiny people. When it was time to go, we hugged goodby as if we were lifelong friends. And that drawing of the rainforest? Even though it’s a mass of hurried scribbles, it’s one of my favorite sketches from the trip.
OUTSIDE
Snow came down all night Sunday and well into Monday, accumulating over a foot on top of the existing six inches. Enough to pull out the snowshoes for the first time this winter. I coax my reluctant body outside and onto the trail on Monday afternoon and again Thursday. It’s cold and windy, though the sun shines down bright and piercing from the ice-blue sky. I make my way along the loop down to the river and up through the neighbors’ field, my knees and hips groaning most of the time.
Deer have been out en masse, their tracks threading through the trees, overlapping our trail, and wandering off in other directions. They leave behind bowl-shaped depressions where they sleep and jelly-bean-sized droppings. Out on the river an animal has plowed a long, straight track through the snow to a patch of open water. It could be an otter slide or the trough made by a beaver’s low, wide body. The bank is high and steep, and I’m less than confident about the integrity of the ice, so I move on, leaving the mystery unsolved. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll go closer.
In the field, Monday’s snowshoe tracks have been all but obliterated by the wind and I must break trail again. The granular snow has been sculpted into dunes and ridges, a desert in miniature. Along the driveway, the shadows of big-toothed aspens line up in a row of parallel stripes of varying size, like a bar code. As I check the mailbox, I wonder at my brain constraining nature in this symbol of capitalism, but when I turn and make my way back down the driveway, my changed perspective renders the shadows loose and wavy, released from the imprisonment of my shallow metaphor. At the same time, I note that the shadows are cast in pale blue upon snow lit gold by the lowering sun. I’m reminded of the optical illusion of the dress, and I despair that my brain has been completely colonized by the internet.
I return home to the fire and hot cocoa, cold-cheeked and hip-sore, but mentally scoured and refreshed.
WRITING NEWS
I’ll be teaching a nature writing workshop at Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library in Lovell, Maine, on April 11. Details to be posted soon on my website.
To see more travel sketches, check out my Puerto Rico Travel Journal post.
For a peek into my eclectic reading habits, check out my December 2025 Reads post.
I haven’t been to the beach since I got back from Puerto Rico; I need to read my own article “Hit the Beach this Winter” in the Green & Healthy Maine Winter Guide.
For a cozy read by the fire, pick up a copy of Echoes in the Fog: Literary Reflections on the Liminal Spaces of Maine’s Coast, and read my essay “The Saltwater Cure.”
If you’re starting to daydream about summer hikes, pick up a copy of my book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail.
For more writing, plus workshops and editing services, visit www.AndreaLani.com.