The Creative Call

Fresh snow frosts the highest branches, clinging in great clumps to the pines. As the road winds, up, up, the snow grows a few inches deeper with every turn.

I am in no hurry. I love this drive, have memorized it from all the times I’ve raced Greylock and Prospect. The fondest memories from five years ago, the year my hair was bleached so blond it broke and fell off, but under the winter hat I wore at the Snowshoe National Championships you couldn’t tell. That year, I finished third, unexpectedly, accidentally, surprisingly, but not without intention. I’d written the lofty goal in my journal a year before. 

The snow is deep like that weekend. Piled high and still mostly white along the edges of the road, yet to turn brown with the slop of salt and sand. 

Somewhere between Brattleboro and Bennington, the road curves left, and on the right, in an expanse of untouched snow, stands a single gray barn. Striking monochromacy. White snow, gray barn, almost black branches reaching, empty towards the low droop of silver clouds. Gray on gray on gray. In its simplicity is the beauty that defines New England in winter. It is a picture. 

I want to stop and capture the subtle beauty that caught my eye. That moved me. My foot touches the break, the car slows as my body responds to the creative pulse. And then reason kicks in, faster than a blink, telling me why not. Pulling over is a bad idea. Unsafe. Silly. Just another photo on your phone. 

The car speeds on, the creative pull forgotten. Until I spot four more barns, three of which feel picture worthy. And I think of how perfect a collection they might make, titled “ A study of Bars on a Vermont Winter’s Day." And I think how silly of me–I am no photographer, no artist. I don’t even have a ‘real’ camera, just an iPhone. 

 The car does not stop. 

At the crest of Route Nine, just before Prospect Mountain, before the descent into Bennington, where the snow is deepest and the elevation highest at almost 2200 feet, I see it. A lone car (a Subaru, of course), pulled off on the left side of the road next to the gated entrance to the State Park, closed for the season, which makes the tracks so striking: two swaths in the deep powder made by a single pair of cross country skis. This is the photo, I think. The poetry of the image, the trespassing into closed places, the trees bent low and arching under the weight of the snow creating a tunnel.

Who was this visitor and what drew them here? I wonder. What was it like to ski under the frozen canopy in the muffled quiet of winter? What thoughts came to them as they glided, shush, shush, shush through the untouched quilt of snow?

I tap the brakes again. The left side of the road would require swinging around. Unsafe. I’d get it on the way back. I’d stop for this one. I'd take the picture, I told myself. 

I speed towards Bennington.

I pick up the snowshoes I came to collect, make a quick stop for coffee and a book. Back in the car I am not even thinking of barns or tracks in the snow, eager to finish the book I am listening to. I’d been saving The Creative Act: A way of being by Rick Ruben for the drive. And so far it is exactly what I’d hoped for: a little bit of Big Magic energy à la Elizabeth Gilbert, a little bit of The War of Art by Pressfield. As I listen, I think about creativity in the context of writing, not photography. My craft is words, not images. At least that’s what I tell myself. 

 The road climbs back up out of Bennington, up past Prospect again, when the State Park sign comes into view. I half expect to see the Subaru still parked, but it is gone. My foot hovers above the brake, but does not touch it. Eyeing the turn off I look for a place to pull over, as I approach the gray on gray on gray makes it hard to see. Where did the car park? But by the time I've worked it out in my head, I am sailing past, settling for a single glance at the tracks in the woods. A longing look down the tunnel of snow. 

I think, for a brief moment, about turning around, but I have ignored the creative pull so many times already today, it’s easy to just keep going. 

I arrive home, the only photo from the trip is of my feet on the coffee shop rug. A downward and uninspired gaze at a single spot...on the floor. 

Later in the week, I listen to Graham Nash, the great singer-songwriter, talk about exercising the creative muscle, how he takes photographs to force himself to be an observer, to see the beauty and poetry all around him. His creative eye feeds his songwriting. He fosters wonder and awe with each click of the camera and that kindles the creative fire. 

As I listen, I think of all the photos I wanted to take on my drive to and from Vermont. The small wonders and awe, how I felt the pull and ignored it, how I suppressed the creative call with reason. I was in no hurry, but I was in a hurry. As if hurry has become a habit, squeezing out wonder, awe, and the creative call. 

That call, that pull, that tug, the whisper of the great creative, the universe, the spark–whatever you want to call it, is worth protecting. I think that I make space for it every morning when I get up early, when the house is quiet, and sit down to write. But it is all around, all the time. In the monochromatic mundane, in a sudden scene of silence, sometimes when we least expect it and calling, calling, calling us to participate. 

If there ever was a worthy resolution for the new year (even though one month has already passed) it is this: to answer the call, to respond to the pull, whenever it shows up. To not just tap the brakes and let reason take over, but press the pedal fully, pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, take the shot. 

Take the shot. 

Write the word(s). Pick up the paintbrush. Knit the yarn. Carve the wood. Throw the clay. Play the chord. 

Feel the pull. Answer the call. Or just stand in wonder, in awe.