The Ring That Became a Sconce

I’ve been quiet here for about a month. Honestly, I don’t have a great excuse. Work got busy, life got busy, and every time I sat down to write something for you, I just kind of stared at the screen, closed the laptop, and went and did something else.

I’ve been tired. Not dramatically so. More like a slow leak in my well of creativity. Part of that is because my thoughts have been focused on managing my mother’s move to Connecticut, which happens next week. The other part could’ve been from burnout.

Then yesterday, I had lunch with one of my college roommates. We hadn’t seen each other in eight years, give or take. During that time, she had gone through cancer treatments, a divorce, raised three kids (launched two, one is still in college), and had somehow come out the other side with a completely new career designing lighting fixtures and furniture for design houses, traveling to Asia to work with manufacturers. She showed up in chunky glasses and cool jewelry, and I thought, “Wow, there she is!”

At some point, we started talking about creative inspiration. She’s a ghost designer, meaning she licenses her designs to various design houses (like Maitland-Smith and Century Furniture), retains control of the artistic direction and manufacturing, and receives royalties on sales. She draws creative inspiration from everyday items: an interesting street light or some Art Deco jewelry that caught her eye (see the photo above).

I know that feeling, but it was interesting to listen to someone from a completely different field describe it the same way. My inspiration doesn’t come from objects, but from conversations or questions that I can’t quite answer for myself. Writing the book helps me clarify my thoughts around topics that impact me, my family, and my community.

We talked about other stuff, too. Kids, parents, the kind of health updates that are apparently just part of the package now. Normal lunch stuff. But on the train from Manhattan back to Connecticut, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it looks like to rebuild your whole life in your 50s. None of what she described sounded cautious. We didn’t directly address the harder questions of what she had to let go of to do that, or when she stopped asking for permission to chase a dream. There’s a cost to becoming a different version of yourself, and most of us spend years avoiding it. She notices something small, follows it, reshapes it, and then has the guts to put it out into the world. And now, having gone for it, she’s come through it all genuinely happy she did. Not just fine. Happy.

When I first began writing, I felt that same way. But the publishing industry can be brutal and test your courage in myriad ways. The past month, I’d hit a real lull. I’d been wrestling with different ideas, thinking about the kind of magic that might interest readers, waiting to feel ready to start. Mostly, I felt like I was falling behind. But sitting across from my old friend, I remembered that the not-knowing is part of the process. That paying attention to random things, a piece of jewelry, an unexpected turn in conversation, a weird Tuesday afternoon where something strange happens, is all part of the work, even when it doesn’t look like anything.

I went home, reread my option-book proposal, and got excited to write it. Now I will cross my fingers and hope my editor connects with those ideas and green-lights the project.

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