Renewing Your Passion

I’ve shared in a past post that for as long as I can remember, I’ve been a writer.  Words are something I’ve always felt at ease with and writing has long been an outlet for my right-brain creative bent.  I also like to draw and create things with paper or fabric, but I’m not as adept as those things.  I started writing stories and poems in elementary school and carried that passion into adulthood.   I didn’t keep everything I wrote, but I have a collection of things I need to organize into something other than scattered notebooks and journals in various hiding places. 

At some point life got in the way and my creativity with words dried up.  There were a few factors, but I went through a very long dry spell.  My mind was consumed with raising a family, and work, and all the busyness that comes in the middle between youthful exuberance and post work re-evaluation of priorities.  At one point my writing became a purge of sadness or frustration or impatience or disillusionment so that even I didn’t want to read it. 

Maybe in my more “advanced” years, I’ve become more observant and introspective.  Or maybe when I quit my job and felt no real focus or direction, it gave my heart and mind an opening to ponder life creatively once again.  The desire and drive to record my thoughts has come back to life.  I recently wrote a poem about this renewal process.  What needs revival in your life? What passion have you put on hold?  Maybe it's time to start watering and fertilizing.

Evergreen

I had so much expectation early on about creative brilliance,

like a sapling that stretches upward and outward to bear foliage.

More branches emerge with each new season,

breaking free of winter’s death with fragrant blossoms,

new shoots growing toward the sunlight, watered by spring’s soft rains.

But summer scorched the tender leaves and dried them on the vines.

Distraction and heat left diligence abandoned until growth ceased.

I thought the young tree had died without chance of revival;

left to its own devices and survival instincts, dormancy won the day.

The natural ebb and flow of months, from deep frost to near drought

did not result in death, but only rest and waiting.

Then one autumn, roots held the needed moisture to look beyond winter

to spring’s renewals and regrowth and hope of becoming.

As the first days of sun’s lengthened rays primed the longing for a

new era of maturation, a determination to live and produce revived.

Passion and creativity have a way of surviving the seasons and years

and find a way to overcome the winds and weeds that threaten to choke.

Now a thriving tree with strong trunk and abundant leaves,

the words pour out like ripened fruit, a harvest’s bounty.

I covenant to water and nurture and protect so it can continue to thrive,

and share the yield so nothing is ever again wasted or lost.