Attuning to Others is Easier, Though

Bluebells, burnout, and providing hospitality to my creative self.

One of the most joyful aspects of hospitality, for me, is discerning what might make my guest’s visit more delightful. I love considering which local restaurant might strike just the right note, or which little-known gem might capture their sense of wonder. I am not one to keep a stash of trial-sized shampoos on hand, but I can certainly scrounge up an extra toothbrush if you need one. My particular kind of welcome looks like drawing you into the places I know and love, based on your appetite for culture or nature, cuisine or conversation.¹

For me, hospitality is about creating an experience for someone else—not a magazine-worthy experience, but a you-were-on-my-mind experience. You were on my mind when I made this bed, folded these towels, and bought this extra bottle of wine. I was thinking of you even before this house was ours. When we picked out this dining room table. When I arranged this furniture. And I was listening closely when you bemoaned that your son only likes this particular kind of mac-n-cheese, when you ordered an oat milk latte, when you shared your particular obsession with dark chocolate after 9pm. Those things are stashed away for your arrival. I was thinking of you.

I’d like to steer this essay away from the notion that I am a wonderful host, because as much as I do truly enjoy trying to think through details big and small, most definitely things are forgotten. And my margin is perpetually thin in this season of motherhood. I can’t promise you won’t see the sharp edges of that from such close proximity. This is not about me as a host, this is about someone I know (knew?) whose needs I am out of practice in considering.

My creative self.

She is outdoorsy and has been shut up all winter. She needs stretches of quiet so that her thoughts can settle, but the ricochet of child demands are perpetually ringing in her ears. She needs to wind through thoroughfares of good thinking, new ideas, fresh perspectives, and she needs to play out those ideas with a partner in thought. But she’s been starved for meaningful conversation. She’s been too busy. Overwhelmed and under-stimulated.

Yesterday, with three hours of childcare and perfect weather, I left my phone in the car and took a long walk. I skipped the bustling cafe and asked for a table for one at a bistro instead, ordered a glass of wine, and journaled all that had risen to the surface in the sunshine.

I have a weird feeling writing about the need to provide hospitality to myself in a time when self-obsession is scorching the planet with its relentless justifications and consumerism. Simultaneously, the absolute self-erasure of motherhood is still alive and well—in my corner of the world, at least. But both of those challenges seem small and ignorant in the face of our disintegrating democracy.

I can only tell you that if I’d been thinking of my creative self like a guest coming for a visit, if I’d been watching the wave of need she rode in on, I’d have recognized that she’d been simultaneously ignored and exploited these last few months. Oh, my friends. It is hard to be well in these times, but it is not self-indulgent to try. Especially when we are tending the patch of Earth we’ve been given with all our hearts. How else can we keep hope alive?

My sister said recently that it’s no wonder so many Christians fail to observe the (second, equally important) greatest commandment to “love thy neighbor as yourself,” because our treatment of ourselves reveals self-loathing so much of the time.

Maybe.

To me it seems the greater problem is a sort of confused apathy, like “What’s the point? What difference will it make? Let’s just keep our heads down and get through this.” Whether we’re considering working a shift at a local soup kitchen or meal-prepping salads for our lunches this week. It’s wearisome. I’m thirty-nine-years-old and I am white-knuckling this life, as privileged as it is.

It’s easy to write off art when the world is on fire, but it matters even more when we’re lost in a haze of confusion and heartache. Artists attend to the world around them. They observe carefully. They ruminate, consider, imagine and then… pour our their very souls at the soiled feet of humanity. My friend Jenna Brack welcomed readers to her home state of Kansas from nearly 5,000 miles away in her new home of Germany through her recently-released collection of essays². Art can build bridges like that. Our conversations with other creatives about place-based storytelling³ were a perfect case study for the varied call-and-response of humans and their environments. How distance brings perspective, how transience makes us more respectful of those who came before us, and how stewardship is a long arc that connects humans across time.

Next week, I’m gathering with hundreds of other writers at the Festival of Faith and Writing⁴ in Grand Rapids. Jenna and I are hosting a lunch circle on the topic of “Writing Inner and Outer Landscapes”, and our planning these last few weeks has been an extension of hospitality—a gentle imagining of fellow creatives we’ll meet and how they might feel weary, lonely, or overstimulated. They might arrive at this conference as a way to nurture their creative self, and then realize that the deluge of brilliant sessions can sort of water-log the brain for a time.

Something that is so obvious I often overlook it is that hospitality leans heavily on empathy. It requires one to have needed the care of others at some point⁵, and to recall where those efforts were most keenly appreciated. What a strange thing to spend so much of my life attuning so closely to the needs of others, siphoning from my own well of experiences and memory to do so, and then forgetting to offer myself the same kindness.

My friend Laura says I can come sit in the grove of Virginia bluebells behind her house whenever I want, but the strange fierceness of this spring will have burned them up soon. I must go tomorrow if I want the chance to see my reflection in what is only here for a short time. When I’m there, I hope the breeze stirring those sweet ephemerals reminds me that my creativity is not an indentured servant to my sense of self, but a friend deserving space and attention in my life.

To attune to her is to experience a certain kind of refuge that I can only offer myself. A walk in the woods, a blank page, and an open heart.

1. I had the sweetest conversation with my friends Ashlee and Katie about Hospitality as A Creative Calling. You can listen to it here.

2. If you haven’t had the chance to read Jenna’s book Pass-through Place yet, I am virtually pressing this beautiful rendering of overlooked beauty into your hands. You’ll love it.

3. Five episodes of our podcast mini-series, Worlds Within, are now live. Come chat with us!

4. FFW is hosted biannually at Calvin University.

5. Parsing out thoughts on this while reading this beautiful book.