A vacation dedicated to recharging the creative-batteries.
It is very difficult, if not impossible to continue to create things without occasionally “refilling the well,” as they say. Creative people more than most benefit from boredom, from unstructured time, from opportunities to wander. These opportunities for aimlessness become more rare with each new commitment, work in progress, fitness goal, and weeknight dinner to plan. Amid the chaos of everyday life, I’ve been deeply looking forward to this friend-vacation structured around the idea of recharging the mind.
More than an escape from everyday life, I hoped to come away from this trip with an ounce of inspiration to take back home with me. Not to strive to do more or make more, but quite possibly the opposite. What I’m starting to take away from this trip (with almost zero screen-time) and the past few months, is trending towards the positives of abandoning a few things that feel important, but aren’t really, thereby reducing my commitments and creating more space for opportunity.
Ok, so what did I do on this vacation, physically? Spent four days in Williamstown and North Adams Massachusetts. Three museums, one mountainous hike, and unbelievably perfect weather for fine-dining outdoors watching some incredible sunsets.
The Clark Institute of Art was by far my favorite with its extensive collection of classical masterpieces. Mass MOCA on day two was less to my taste, but that’s the way with contemporary art; there were still good exhibits to discover, and it’s worth knowing what’s getting into museums these days whether I find it palatable or not.
Between museum visits there was plenty of downtime for drawing, reading, walking, and pedicures. This was a girl’s trip after all. On day-three we hiked a portion of Mt Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts. I find challenging hikes in nature to be extremely restorative.
Before heading home we stopped at the Williams College Museum of Art which is free to the public and had a lovely collection of modern Tibetan art hung in conversation with traditional Buddhist art, as well as a permanent collection and student work on display.
Returning to work it’s easy to get sucked into the frantic pace of publishing and the hundreds of emails flooding my inbox everyday, but I’m trying to pay more attention to the daily opportunities to do the things that I enjoy.
