One of the negative side effects of spending a week, such as I did, in an inspiring retreat in West Cork is that you come home, look at your refrigerator and maybe your washing machine, and say to yourself, “So, now what?”  What can I possibly do to recreate, if even in a small way, the environment which led me to be the incredibly productive me that I was just a few days ago? What do I do?  Hire a cook?  Banish my kids?  Give up my friends (not to mention blogging)? Well, of course not, but it is very frustrating, this push-me-pull-you of the “life of the person” vs the “life of the mind.”  It sent me back to a book I discovered via Sarah Salway‘s blog a short while ago, Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t so thrilled with the title when I first heard it.  It sounds too much like some snake-oil selling motivational speaker.  But I trust Sarah, and I already knew Tharp from her decades of ground-breaking choreography.  She’s been one of my heroes for a very long time.  And I was right to persevere past the title, because the book is full of common sense inspiration.  It’s one of those books that you read with a highlighter in your hand.  So, since I’ve been back, I’ve been perusing it again, and I thought I’d share some of these pearls with you.
“You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re
not open to the possibility of a glorious accident.”

“Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all
the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the
essence of the creative life.”

“I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five
years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

“This is the [creative] bubble. Everything you see, hear, touch and smell gets trapped
within immediately. As you pursue your art over the years, accumulating skill and
experiences, you respect this precious ideal state more deeply. This is why writers go off
to secluded colonies and artists work in studios away from their homes…Being in the bubble
does not mean being a hermit. You can function out in the world (indeed, you have to),
but wherever you go, the bubble goes with you.”

These are just a few of her bits of advice which have really resonated with me. But since it is her choreography
that she’s really all about, here are some of her dancers performing to the music of Billy Joel from the
award-winning “musical” they co-wrote called, Movin’ Out: