life

Art, Creativity, and Time—Or the lack thereof

~ miriamlein ~ Leave a comment

It’s raining again as it has off and on for the last few days and many other days for this entire month. A wind ruffles the new leaves of the apple tree outside my living room window. Pink and white flower buds cover the tree, a few tentatively opening their petals despite the lack of sunlight and warmth the last few weeks. After finally giving up on trying to climb in my lap and displace my iPad and keyboard, Bede has managed to squeeze himself onto the little bit of remaining footstool so that he can sleep curled up against my feet.

In this perfectly peaceful and idealic setting, I am grappling with the limits of time. I am not old, but I am getting older, and as different things in my body begin to show signs of age and wear, I have taken stock of what I want to be doing with my time and how I’m not doing it yet. I want to be an artist. No, I AM an artist. But I am an artist who is currently producing very little art. I envision a future full of writing, sewing, sketching, printing. For years I’ve dreamed of creating a space where not only can I be doing those things, but I can invite others in to do those things as well. A place full of deep conversation, meaningful creativity, and energetic community. But I’ve only ever taken the very first few steps towards that goal before life circumstances seem to get in the way.

I spend a lot of time these days frustrated with both the circumstances of my life that leave me with very little resources of time, energy, or money to use towards my larger goals and with myself for not using what little bit I do have in a way that would indicate that I actually value art and creativity. Creativity for me seems to take quite a bit of tenacity and intentionality. It does not happen spontaneously in the in-between spaces of my busy days no matter how much I might expect it to.

It was Springtime when I started this blog as you can tell from the intro. As I sat pondering all this and attempting to reflect it all in writing, John came home and we ended up discussing all of this. We are both in similar mental spaces, grateful for so much of what our current life offers us and yet still desiring to live more fully into the artistic life. While our discussion didn’t immediately answer all of our questions, it did lead to identifying one simple step we can take towards an intentional plan to use what little resources we do have (including using my PTO very intentionally) to try to coordinate more of our free hours so that we can together devote time

for creativity and community building. Knowing that summer is crazy we set our plan to start in September once everyone was back at school. That time is now almost upon us. As I go through this incredibly busy couple of weeks moving boys out of the house and into dorms (Seth back to boarding school, Will to college), seeing Dietrich off to his first day of 7th grade, and planning and carrying out professional development days for the staff at work; I am also counting down the days to the first of these intentional afternoons we’ve set aside devoted to creativity. I know it isn’t much, but it is something that I’ve clung to, determined to keep this promise to myself. Even though I cannot yet see the path to the future I envision, I can see this one intentional step I can take to bring at least a little bit of that future into my present.

A few thoughts on 25 years of marriage.

~ miriamlein ~ Leave a comment
  1. Anniversaries are somewhat meaningless in measuring wisdom. We cannot expect someone to have the answers to healthy relationships just because they have been married a long time. And though I don’t think it is wrong to recognize and celebrate certain milestones, I also feel strongly that longevity is not necessarily an indicator of relationship success. So, take that as you will, and read on with a critical eye. 
  2. People change over time, which means that their relationships necessarily do as well. The two 20 year olds who stood in Siloam Springs Bible Church 25 years ago and said “I do,” are not the same people as the two 45 year olds who are living life together now. Over the years we have both been many different versions of ourselves in many different versions of relationship. Our relationship has sometimes been an assumption, barely there as we learned to survive as adults and parents. Other times, it has been weighty for me, a responsibility that felt hard, an expectation that I could never ever live up to. Then there were times of discovery, a freedom found in learning to think about ourselves and each other without the burden of the expectations of our former selves. And there were times of anguish and questioning, wondering if this relationship was still worth the effort it took. Other times, and I think this is one of them, our relationship has been comfortable, not as exciting as some of those other times perhaps, but also not nearly as difficult. I’ve been pondering this lately, and wondering if it is healthier to live in continual gratitude for each stage you’ve been able to experience, or if we should be constantly striving to return to some previous rendition of our relationship. A friend recently pointed out that just because I’ve left fulfilling seasons in the past, doesn’t mean that there are not new and wonderful times ahead. This struck me as very wise. I would like to adopt this attitude, allowing myself to be grateful for what was and what is, while also working towards health and wholeness with a patient and open expectancy of what will be.
  3. Choice is an essential and always present piece of every relationship. You, like I, may have been led to believe differently. At the time I made vows to my husband, I truly thought this was a one and done decision I was making. In some ways that brought me peace as it removed a certain amount of anxious questioning that I was often prone to. But I have come to believe that this concept of the once and forever decision is just not true. We always have a choice. Every day we get to decide if we are present in this relationship or not. As we grow and change and our partner grows and changes, I believe it is a healthy and necessary thing to recognize our own agency in the continuance of the relationship. I was raised in a religious and cultural context that made very little room for the choice to leave a relationship after wedding vows were said. Divorce was really only justified on the grounds of infidelity or abuse, which meant that it was always negative and was most definitely a failure. I was taught that I shouldn’t even consider it an option because that would cause me to not be fully committed to the relationship. I have now realized that it is the existence of continual choice that actually frees me to fully and truly commit. Recognizing and exercising choice can be a scary thing. I have walked the dark and fearful path of truly questioning whether or not I wanted to continue this journey with this partner, and it was not an easy place to find myself. Ironically, what rescued me from those moments of internal angst was the recognition that not only could I choose to leave, but I could also choose to stay, which I realized was exactly what I wanted to do.  Again, not a once and forever choice, just a choice for that moment, that day, that month, that year, and on and on and on.
  4. Choice goes both ways. Maybe this is obvious, but in case it is not, let me extrapolate. It is not just that I have agency to choose, but so does my partner. This means I must give him the space to do so. I believe that true love does not cling, but rather holds loosely, allowing the other person to choose how present they are at any given time, and ultimately whether or not they want to stay. It doesn’t mean I can’t bring up concerns or ask for things, but I must always respect the other’s individuality within the relationship. If I had learned this earlier in my relationship I think it would have saved me from a lot of unrealistic expectations and disappointments and allowed me to focus more on learning who my husband actually was, rather than who he was expected to be.
  5. Personal growth enriches rather than detracts from our relationships. I was raised in a patriarchal context surrounded by subtle and sometimes not so subtle messages that my husband’s goals and priorities should be my own. Example: I read an organization book written for wives and mothers who were managing large households that told me to let my husband set our family’s priorities and to set aside time in my day to work towards his goals. It took some time for me to completely separate from this cultural expectation and realize that it is my own goals and priorities that I should make central to my day. And while I think this is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself because I believe I am worth my own time and effort, I also think that my relationships thrive when I am actively working towards becoming who I want to be in this world.

Lent 2025

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

At the end of last winter, I remember going for a walk during the season of Lent, down one of the rural roads near where we live. I walked through the forest—overgrown and tumbling cabin walls marking the remains of long abandoned homesteads. It was bitter cold, and everything was still brown and grey and still. The quiet seemed to be embodied by the trees, who stood as strong grounded sentinels, only their very tops giving in with the slightest movement to the wind. And yet, despite the stillness of the forest, it was as if I could feel the vibration of unseen life below the surface. It was quiet, but not dead. Still, but not inactive. Life coursed through the forest as it readied itself for Spring. 

At the time, I was dealing with a very stressful job. There was so much upheaval that felt very much out of my control in my work. I was drawn in that moment to those trees. Though I could feel the cold wind on my face, I could not see it in the trees without looking up to the topmost branches. They felt grounded and strong and yet very much alive. That was the spirit I wanted to strive for in the chaos of that moment. Not numbness, but rather peace. Not inactivity, but rather quiet internal work, the work that would make a true difference as the world around me changed.

And it dawned on me that this is what the season of Lent can be as well. It is waiting, but also working. Preparing ourselves for the next stage or season, whatever that may look like personally in our lives.

As I contemplate the memory of my intention, I can’t help but reflect on the results of it over the course of that year. I’ve come full circle now, back to another Lent. Was I successful at embodying the quiet dignity of a tree? Some days I think I was. But other days the chaos left me windswept and worried. The stressors in my work ebbed and flowed. Sometimes it felt like things were settling down and then we’d be thrown into a new catastrophe. There were tears and tension and dismay and hopelessness throughout those months. There was also hope and joy and community and wisdom. Sometimes I experienced all of those things in one day. But it wore on me. Eventually I did what the tree cannot do, I picked up my roots and moved away from the chaos. I opened myself up to new opportunities and accepted a new position in a different organization.

I am proud of myself for taking that risk, for prioritizing my mental, physical, and emotional health. Stability is what I felt I had to cling to last year, standing firm in the midst of the chaos. I felt so beaten down over the last year, and there are so many rhythms I created to cope with stress that I’d like to now dismantle. I wanted to write that my intention this year is to focus on growth, because there are so many things I want to grow more into, things that I set aside over the last year due to lack of energy—writing, art, sewing. But then I remembered that the lack of these things in my life over the last year does not automatically equate to a lack of growth. In the last few weeks of the job I left, I did a lot of reflecting on my time there. And I realized that one thing that had happened was that I had grown. I had grown in confidence and ability and even in ambition. It was hard fought and sometimes uncomfortable growth, as growth often is. So perhaps, growth is not quite the word I’m looking for. Perhaps expansion and energy are more fitting. Like a tree in Springtime, when the flowers and leaves burst forth in an outward expression of all that inward preparation, I now want to focus on the outward expressions of my strength and resilience. It is fitting therefore, to post here on this blog which has remained quiet for far too long. May this be the first of many posts this year.