The clamor that generates creativity

Some writers dream of solitude: a Thoreauvian cabin in which to spend their hours writing; a windswept beach on which to walk alone as they let ideas percolate.

I know better: at least for me, it is the company of others and not the silence of aloneness that energizes me and fuels my creativity.

And this is fortuitous, because a solitary cabin on a windswept beach is not a place I am likely to find myself any time soon. But last night, feeling refreshed from the weekend and excited about a new work week beginning, I was struck by all the different constellations of people who had peppered my entire weekend, from start to finish.

On Friday evening, I went to a small gathering at a friend’s house: there I visited with four or five women whom I know but haven’t spent nearly enough time with lately. On Saturday afternoon, I walked for an hour with my friends Jane and Donna. On Saturday evening, one of Tim’s friends came over, and the kids and I played Parcheesi out on the screen porch long after dark.

On Sunday morning, the gathering I was in the midst of had an average age of about nine: I taught the grades 3-5 Sunday school class, and struggled to answer their provocative questions about everything from whether to use “He” or “She” when talking about God (as with so many other aspects of Unitarian Universalism, I told them, you should use whichever one is in accordance with your beliefs, or perhaps neither) to why in Biblical times animals – such as the Garden of Eden’s serpent – talked to people and today they generally do not.

On Sunday afternoon, Holly and my mother and I attended an open studios event at a large arts complex in Maynard; dozens of artists took time to talk with us about their work, which ranged from painting to jewelry making to pottery to metal crafting. In the evening, my parents came over for dinner, and as we once again sat out on the screen porch – it was an unseasonably warm, humid weekend – my father told me a story I’d never heard before about a time during his teenage years when his boat ran out of gas and he spend the night lost in the woods.

While I can’t right now say how any of these encounters will turn into a specific piece of writing, I know it’s all mingling – or perhaps composting -- somewhere in the back of my brain. By the end of the weekend, I was struck by just how lucky I am to have so many people around me so much of the time: children, adults, friends, new acquaintances. Solitude might be effective for meeting deadlines, but company is what writers need in order to generate ideas. And as much as peace and quiet sometimes seems like an unattainable goal when you are in the middle of the busy parenting years, a clamor of voices can be more artistically inspiring than any lonely windswept beach.

Thoreau's three chairs and my Old Home Day weekend

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. - Henry David Thoreau

Over the holiday weekend, I kept thinking of this Thoreau quotation, one that has always appealed to me. For no reason that I could explain, I felt as if I had removed some of the chairs from my holiday room.

Along with leading into the Independence Day holiday, this was Old Home Day weekend in Carlisle. Old Home Day weekend is a huge deal in Carlisle. It’s the weekend the whole town shows up for, or at least that percentage of the town not yet off to their summer homes in Nantucket or their safari vacations in Nairobi – but that’s still a surprisingly large number of people, for such a small town.

People love it for its old-fashioned community spirit, and being in the thick of the crowd is all part of the fun. Most years, I’m absolutely on board with all of that. But for some reason, this year I just wasn’t into it. I didn’t feel like joining the throngs at the country fair or cheering for the soapbox derby. I stepped out of my usual role of chairing the pie contest. I didn’t buy tickets for my family to attend the chicken barbeque at the fire station.

Perhaps most tellingly, I didn’t register for the road race. Running five miles with a hundred other people didn’t appeal to me this year. And yet I did run five miles (actually 5.2 miles) on the morning of the Old Home Day road race, and I started only about a half-hour after the race’s start time. So it wasn’t the distance of the run nor the early hour that turned me off this year. It was just a year that I felt like running alone.

Nonetheless, it’s not like I spent the weekend in solitude. My eight-year-old was intent upon entering our dog in the Old Home Day pet show, so all four of us headed up to the town center in time for that event. And that turned out to be just about enough for us. Rather than spending the whole day amidst the throngs, like we normally do on Old Home Day, we spent fifteen minutes at the pet show (just long enough for Holly to win a free ice cream by answering several questions about the dog), took a walk along the main thoroughfare, bought a couple of snow cones, browsed at the used book sale, and headed back home.

In fact, the best part of the townwide celebration as far as I was concerned was Sunday evening’s outdoor concert, held on the school’s baseball field. It didn’t attract much of a crowd, in part because a couple of hours of drizzle were just winding down and in part because as the very last event of the weekend, it comes at a time when a lot of families are just worn out. Not us, though. We were feeling energized after such a mellow weekend, and we had a wonderful time listening to bluegrass music and eating ice cream. No contests, no prizes, no dunking booth, no blue ribbons, no announcements. At least this year, it was my favorite part of Old Home Day weekend.

In past years, I’ve thrown myself into the town spirit at Old Home Day weekend: greeting, chatting, racing, competing, cheering, taking part in all the activities that make this event what it is. Those are the years I put out my three Thoreau-inspired chairs and welcome society. This year was different. It was a one-chair weekend for me, metaphorically speaking. Maybe next year I’ll be back up for full-on community spirit. I don’t know why this year I felt so different, and I imagine the pendulum will swing back in another year. But Thoreau reassures me that all of those choices are mine to make: solitude, friendship, society. And when the time comes, I’ll be ready to put out all three chairs once again.