Stymied, stuck, at a stasis

I am stymied, stuck, at a stasis. Some paralysis of the head has got me frozen.

But I must get back into the world of my creative mind: otherwise, in the world of pies & shin beef, I die. The great vampire cook extracts the nourishment & I grow fat on the corruption of matter, mere mindless matter. I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in.

(from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

Apologies for the sporadic nature of posts on here lately. Life has been busy. But more than that, I have been feeling profoundly uncreative. This is not unusual at this time of year. Exams and final papers take a toll on me creatively. Moving knocks the wind right out of me. And the typical end-of-term sickness makes it hard to do anything. I've been thinking the last few days about how dry and sterile I feel when it comes to creative things. It has been so long since I did anything deeply creative. I keep thinking back to last summer; a lot of things about that period of time sucked. It was not a good year. But my days fell into a lovely rhythm, an ebb and flow of creativity, an immersion in artistic pursuits. I miss that feeling. I need to reacquaint myself with pastels. I need to buy some film for my new Diana camera and begin to play with it. I need to spend days taking photos. I need to learn a new song on the piano. I need to write. I just need to do something.

This photo has very little to do with this post other than the fact that it was produced in one of my few creative moments in the past few weeks. I kind of like it for that fact. It promises me that I won't be stuck in this barren land forever. It's a little glimmer of hope.