I Don’t Want to Be the Creator, I Want to Be the Creation

I’m unsure of the author, but there is a poem that goes something like this: ”I don’t want to be the poet, I want to be the poem. I don’t want to be the dancer, I want to be the dance. I don’t want to be the musician, I want to be the music.” The moment I heard this, I giggled involuntarily in deep recognition. It resonated in the bones of my body, while my mind took a moment to catch up.

I have been struggling lately to go into my studio to sit down and do the work of running the business I've created for the last 30 years. I realized recently that I did not want to be there doing this kind of work. This busy, detached work must be done. I felt overwhelmed by my to-do list of social media postings, marketing, bookkeeping, blog writing, endless emails, and editing. Any photographer will tell you that these tasks take up the majority of your time, unless you can outsource some of them. Some tasks, such as writing these posts, I find enjoyable, but when the lists grow endless, it can be easy to lose sight of your passions. For most photographers, the “running the business part” isn’t why any of us started down a path into photography. That's not why I did it, at least. I honestly had no idea what a career in photography or running a successful business looked like so many years ago. They simply didn’t teach you this when you’re getting a BFA or Masters in photography.

So here I am sitting in my studio, slogging through the drudgery of it all until my next photoshoot, when I get to be in connection and be IN the creation. Up until a few days ago, I saw no relief on site, and then I heard, “I don’t want to be the poet, I want to be the poem.” I found the word that spoke to my situation within the structure of the poem: “I don’t want to be the creator, I want to be the creation.” AHHHHH, yes, that was it.

So what’s a gal to do in this situation? Well, first, I noticed there was relief in knowing. Once I was able to identify where my struggle was, I instantly exhaled. I made the phrase my mantra from that moment, “I don’t want to be the creator, I want to be the creation," and said it the minute I began to feel overwhelmed or lost. It reminds me to make sure I am the creation and not the creator, aka the doer. Next, I had to find balance. A few things that help are working when I can from a cafe where other live humans are. YAY connection! Other days, it’s working from the coziness of my own home and taking walks intermittently. Sure, there are times I need to be at my studio computer editing, but on days I don't, I can be in the creation of life and flow through until my next photoshoot, when I truly feel present and in creation.

To be the creation is to be in communion with all of life, to feel it all. I don’t want to stand alone and do this all by myself. I don’t want to and never have wanted to create a bubble, to be separate from the whole of it all. My work, at its core, is all about collaboration and connection, and that’s why I love being a photographer. I could not do what I do without the subject's complicity, openness, and willingness to be creative with me. I want to be in the swirling, beautiful flow of all that is creation and connection, to experience all of life.

Here are some photographs I created during my 2016 trip to Italy, one place where I feel the constant flow of all of creation. I am all at once creating but also connected to everything and everyone around me. I am enlivened and completely free. I hope you each have a place like this.