Flush, Purge, Vomit

I’m recommitting to my Morning Pages* practice. My system requires a good flushing at regular intervals, and I am all too aware that the pipes are clogged.

Petty complaints, repetitive lists, and boring gobbledegook — the sludge that floats on the surface of my brain — I need a place for it.

When I don’t purge, I become scattered, irritable, and boring. My creativity takes a nose-dive, and I fall back into old, self-critical, melancholy patterns.

When I first started writing the pages in 2013, I wrote them in fancy journals with pretty covers. I was precious about them and struggled to stick to the rules. I wanted to edit them. I wanted to say pretty things to match the pretty covers of those journals.

Eventually, I let go. I embraced the pages for what they were - a brain flush.

Purge.

Vomit.

I didn’t need to write pretty things.

I started writing them in cheap, composition notebooks.

One day, I started making marks over the top of my words. Layers of paint, glue, and magazine clippings covered my scrawling handwriting. I realized I didn’t need to keep them — the words. I didn’t need to re-read them. It was all the same stuff over and over again.

Those notebooks took up a lot of space.

These days, I write my pages in ProCreate on my IPad.

Three, handwritten pages. No stopping. No editing.

These pages, just like all the others, are still filled with boring lists, petty complaints, and repetitive gobbledegook.

Flush.

Purge.

Vomit.

Every once in a great while, a creative pearl spatters out.

It’s rare.

I make art over the top of my words.

That art is just an extension of the pages themselves.

More flushing.

More purging.

More…Vomit.

I layer colors, erase — scribble over and over again. I go until my system is empty.

Then I take a breath and move into my world.

*The Morning Pages are one of the primary tools that Julia Cameron recommends in her book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity