Flitter: Poetic Innie or Outie

The last several days I have been thinking about the pursuit of creative endeavors, my creativity expresses itself through words and images. Creativity is personal and in many ways it makes us vulnerable, we open up ourselves for others to read, to view the world through our filters. I have asked myself the last several years.

What makes a writer?

What makes one write?

Is there a artist or poet gene?

Why do I write?

What compels me to lay open my thoughts and images?

A friend relayed a conversation with another poet about writers either writing to get in or get out--I likened it in my abby normal way to having a innie or an outie writers navel. Writing for me is a conversation, sometimes it is a conversation with myself, sometimes with others, sometimes with God, it is simply how I process. The words flow easy for me, they are for me a song that accompanies everything I do, even when I am not writing, they are there--they are never still or quiet. I believe that as humans we have an innate desire to create, perhaps because God created us in his image, and that each person creativity manifests itself differently. Me, I am a curious talker and a visual listener. I am an amateur. I am good with that, I'd like to think perhaps a time or two a photo or a few lines of prose or poetry approaches what I like to call "the more", something that might transcend and reach out to others. I struggle with time restraints and commitments, contiously. My creative time often comes in fit and spurts, and I sandwich it between the other roles in my life, still I make a concerted effort to fit it in. I went through a large period of discontent wanting to spend every available minute in the pursuit of the creative; either writing or taking photos, yet I found I began to miss my own life, my friends, my family, these things I had pushed to the back burner temporarily to make more time for being creative. Over the last couple of years I strived to find balance between the roles in my life. I am not always successful but I have reached a good place in my life, I know who I am and I am comfortable in being me, the good, the bad and the in between and every day I make a few minutes to feed the creative me. I challenge us all to feed their creative sides, in whatever way it manifests itself. I believe in the process of being creative we often reach beyond ourselves to others to create a bridge, to allow for compassion and respect of others. It unites us in our global humanity. The photos some of my earliest, with my first camera a Kodak, I love them for thier imperfection, for my inability to capture the butterfly in flight, so that the wings are merely a suggestion, a blur of color, a flitter of movement. For the record, my poetic belly button is an innie.

So let me know are you a poetic innie or outie?