Week Three: Get Curious
Creative Practices for the Winter Doldrums
It’s week three. How are those doldrums coming along?
We made it through January, yes we did, but it’s been raining a lot for us soft Californians, and I’ve been blasting my Doldrums, Winter playlist on full blast. (And yes, send me any songs I should add.)
It was one of the first playlists I ever made on Spotify, and upon rediscovery, I realized my love for the word doldrums goes back a long time. Did you know it’s linked back to an area near the Equator where windless waters could becalm ships for weeks? That’s a fact, Jack. How great is the word becalm? I love the image of sailors languishing in the windless waters, waiting for something to move. It’s how the doldrums can feel—in a word, stuck.
So what are we doing this week? Well, let’s see how far can we push the maritime metaphor…Ready to free your becalmed ship, scallywags? Nope, nope, too far. Let’s try normal people talk: this week is about movement—the movement of curiosity, of letting yourself play and having some fun. If this sounds too perky, fear not. I will not force a group game upon you, promise. This is a choose-your-own-adventure situation, where you’ll get to follow your whimsy and design an outing that sounds fun to you.
Row on, sailors, row on.
Questions:
Have fun with these. Try to not censor or edit yourself.
Imaginary Lives: If you weren’t living your current life, what would you love to do? Write up to 10 alternate lives.
This can include living in a different time period, or culture, or having different talents or abilities than you currently possess—I would be a baker in Paris in the 1920s. It can also be a childhood dream to be an astronaut or a ballerina.
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
Write the first 10 things that come to your mind as fast as you can.
A List of Curiosities:
Fill in the blank: Lately, I’ve been curious about __________.
This can be anything from the practical to the obscure. If you’ve been curious about the Worm Moon, put it on your list. Try to get 5 curiosities, and if you have more, keep writing.
Practices:
A Grown-up Play Date
You are going to take yourself on a little outing this week.
Doing what? Whatever sounds fun and interesting.
With who? Your fine self and the kid inside of you.
For what purpose? For the sheer joy of exploration, imagination, and play. If we are going to create, we need input. We need the fascinating and stimulating and beautiful to stoke our curiosity.
Julia Cameron calls these adventures Artist Dates—
It’s a “festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. It need not be overtly “artistic”– think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration.”
A few examples:
Give yourself a small budget at the thrift or dollar store to buy whatever catches your eye. Want googly eyes or a weird wig? Buy it.
Go roller skating or bowling or to the arcade
Eat somewhere new and order something you never have tried
Walk the historical part of your town and sketch a building
Buy yourself an ice cream and go swing at the park
Listen to live music or wander in a record store
Collect sticks on a walk in the woods and paint them fun colors
This does not need to be highbrow unless your inner child really really wants to go to an exhibit or reading, then by all means, go for it. And wear a fancy outfit while you’re at it.
Make a Plan:
Look over all the lists you’ve made so far (Week One + Week Two here if you need to review).
What sounds fun or a little mischievous?
How could I incorporate one part of an imaginary life into my current life?
What did I love to do as a kid that I haven’t done in a long time?
How could I follow my curiosity?
Write down 5 ideas for play dates. Then pick one to do this week.
You might be thinking—Jackie, I don’t have time to play. Let’s get serious here, I am a responsible adult.
Yes, you might need to schedule this and get a babysitter, especially if your life is full. Go back and look at your notes about how you spend your free time. What was unfulfilling? Aha! There is your window to do this. If you still don’t believe me, I humbly request you look at your screen time totals from your phone last week and see if you can find an extra hour for this outing.
If you can’t let yourself play, that’s a bigger conversation, and you can look at my coaching info at the bottom of this post. It is one of my great delights to help people learn how to play ;)
From my current list of curiosities:
origins of the word doldrums
mint + coral + pink color palettes
gold in the green hills
mermaids
neon paint
names of the full moons
a lavish spring picnic in the woods
the phrase “our collective liberation”
Random? Yes.
Do I know where any of this is going to lead? No.
Here’s the secret—this is where the fun lies, where the adventure begins. I’ve seen again and again, both in my own life and in the lives of my students, that when we set down that pesky little killjoy named Control and befriend Curiosity, treasures await. I can’t tell you what, or how, or when, but I can tell you that all this good work of making space, paying attention, and letting yourself play leads you to places you never imagined.
A Story about Getting Curious:
Mermaids have been dancing in my head for a few years now. I’m more of a unicorn girl, but I’ve noticed mermaids floating by in a few pieces of writing and conversations. It’s all fairly abstract—glimpses of a tail out of the corner of my eye on occasion. The whole thing feels quite fanciful and a bit mysterious, and I haven’t done much about it besides letting it sit on my list of curiosities.
Then a few weeks ago, a fellow Substacker shared one of my posts along with a photo of a mermaid in a bathtub. As we messaged back and forth, she brought up a quote I’ve loved for a long time.
“I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of the depths and a great fear of shallow living.”-Anaïs Nin.
Ah yes, I forgot about it, but I’ve always loved that imagery, so much so that I mod-podged it onto collages a decade ago during my short-lived craft business. Hmm. Is there something brewing? Mermaids afloat? I tucked the thought away and moved on.
A few days after that, I had a strong urge to see the ocean. You would think that living so close, I would always be there, but alas, life happens. I drove to one of my favorite places and wandered around for a while. Everyone was gazing out at the horizon, hoping for whales. As I watched the waves crash on the rocks, all of a sudden I thought, “Ooh, maybe it’s a photo shoot at this location—the Mermaid Edition of the Red Dress Project?” (If you’re new, more about the Red Dress Project here.)
Do I do underwater photography? No.
Do I have any idea how I would pull that off? No.
Am I going to convince people to do a mermaid photo shoot in the freezing Pacific? Feels a little ridiculous, even for me.
But as I stood watching the water, a grin spread over my face. How great and hilarious would it be to capture grown women living out their mermaid dreams?
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, and the photo shoot is too much. Maybe this was about a connection with a new friend on Substack, or a reminder to keep swimming in the deep, away from shallow living. Maybe it’s something else entirely, beyond what I can see. I can’t tell you, because I don’t know yet.
What I can tell you is that a few days after the ocean trip, I opened my email to read your ridiculous childhood stories, and one of you wrote to tell me about being so committed to the mermaid life that you sported a homemade tail at the community pool and flopped around doing tricks for anyone who would watch.
We’d never spoken about mermaids before.
I sat there reading the email and laughing in delight.
Row on sailors, row on.
There’s magic afloat.
Tell me about your play date or send me song recommendations! Comment below or tag me on Instagram: @jackieknapp_
Workshops + Retreats: If you need a fresh take on a work event, my lighthearted workshops on creativity and self-care have been fan favorites for a variety of companies. You can find more info here. If you’d like to talk about planning a retreat for your group or church, please get in touch at jackie@jackieknapp.com.
Coaching: I have a few coaching spots open if you need help with a creative project or the project of life itself—I’d love to chat. Find more info here or email me to set up a free discovery call. I’d love to hear from you!