Raised by a father who is an environmentalist and a mother who is a storyteller, it shouldn’t be a shock that each plays a significant role in my passions and creative process. For years I’ve enjoyed discussing stories with my Mom, and finding inspiration for my writing while on a hike with my dad as he attempts to explain why a plant is called “doghobble” (it took awhile for us to fully communicate the history and reasoning behind this recently).

What is surprising is how much I’ve recently learned how the environment, or I guess I should say, my environment, affects my writing.

I use to have a routine. I’d be out in the world, on a hike or in the city interacting with nature or people, and I’d get an idea. I’d either jot it down on a piece of paper or make a note of it in my phone. Then I’d head off to the coffee shop (I like noise while I’m writing), talk with the barista, order my latte with about half the amount of almond syrup normally put in, and then I’d belly up to the bar looking out the window and open my journal or computer, take a sip off my latte and I was ready to begin.

It use to feel like a waisted day if I didn’t make it to the coffee shop. Then life changed. The pandemic hit, and living in Oregon we were under the “Stay Home, Save Lives” order. My creative environment, my comfort zone, wasn’t available any more. Like many, I felt lost. Wandering to find my place, while continually sequestered in “my place.”

Writing didn’t feel right. It felt foreign. Reading was the same way. It was as if I forgot how to do either. With the added oddity of not interacting with people, I didn’t feel inspired or motivated to continue with my past passions.

So, I guess it isn’t that odd that, knowing I needed a creative outlet, I tried something new. Isolated in my little apartment, it felt right to learn a new skill. I started watercoloring. It started with simple shapes, then moved to my investigation of youtube watercolor tutorials, to getting comfortable with sketching a scene on one of my social distance walks to the park.

My environment changed, and so did my focus.

So did my desk. Plants became needed. Office organizers were acquired and filled with paint brushes, artist tape, and paper. Colorful tiles were placed just so, in order to distinguish between the mason jar that held the water for my paint and the mason jar for the water I was actually drinking out of. No longer did I leave the junk mail on the top of the desk, I needed space to create. The computer was near if the urge to write came about, but it would take another environment change before that happened.

Just getting comfortable in my environment, everything finally feeling as though it had a place, I tore it all down having to make the long cross country move across states (though I’m still trying to say that it’s simply an extended winter vacation from Portland in the hopes to keep my sanity). It was a move I didn’t want to make, and one that I never intended or expected. Arriving in Tennessee, I recognized immediately what needed to be done. I needed to find my space of comfort. My environment that makes me feel creative. I needed to set up my space (an important concept this pandemic has taught me).

Of course, I used my trusted resources and allies. My dad set to work on making me a desk (it’s beautifully stained blue for the color I need in my life) to write, paint, or simply sit and look out the window from. My mom, I’m so thankful for her suggestion to Dad to make the desk for me.

To be able to write, I realize now that I need color. I need noise. I need interactions and movement to feel as though I have something or someone to write about. I need space. I need a plant (the first thing I bought on my arrival to this state). My environment is imperative to my process.

I’m still figuring out my place here. There is still more work I need to do to make myself feel fully comfortable in this new found environment, I’m working on it. I’m writing. I’m reading. I’m painting. And every day, I make an effort to build this room into the creative inspiring space I need to keep me going. As much as I can’t wait for the day that I can return to my coffee shop and order that latte, my journal and pen in hand ready to sit hours at the bar in comfort. I want the environment I live in every day to be just as inspiring and comfortable if not more so.