Issue #161: 7 Tips for Fostering a Creative Life (No Matter Your Career)

And a conversation on slowing down.

I’m currently in the midst of an international adventure, so I’m featuring guest recommenders each week while I travel. The first two recs this week come from

Rachel Schwartzmann

of

Slow Stories

, who I interviewed below about her wonderful book, Slowing, out today!

📚 Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin: It's thrilling to share my pub day with Lauren Elkin, whose brilliant debut novel, Scaffolding, lands in the U.S. on 9/17! The story is set in Paris' Belleville neighborhood (in 2019 and 1972) and is mainly told through the lens of a grieving psychoanalyst named Anna following her miscarriage and subsequent breakdown. Unable to return to work, Anna throws herself into a kitchen renovation and a life-altering friendship with her new neighbor. This book has so many layers, but to me, it's a story about transformation—physical, emotional, geographical, familial. It is a question and questioning of love and desire: how we give it, show it, (try to) contain it, and ultimately let it shape us. - Rachel

📚 The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş: "What was the lesson, then? And how were we meant to live?" I read Ayşegül Savaş's The Anthropologists right after I finished Scaffolding, and it reinforced how much I love narratives examining home and community. This story follows a young couple, Asya and Manu, as they search for an apartment and for meaning—both inside and beyond its walls. In a series of elegant vignettes told from Asya's perspective, readers are reminded of the power of paying attention to life's small pleasures. This slim book really holds so much wisdom (and, in some ways, reminded me of Jhumpa Lahiri's stunning novel, Whereabouts). Add it to your reading list if you enjoy stories about growing up (and growing old), kinship and family, ritual and language. - Rachel

🎥 “How to Die Alone” on Hulu: Anyone who’s lived in New York City knows it can be a surprisingly lonely city, despite the fact (because of the fact?) that you’re constantly surrounded by people. This new series centers on a JFK airport transportation worker (played by Natasha Rothwell of “White Lotus”) after a freak accident lands her in the hospital. While I haven’t yet watched an episode (travel has impeded my ability to vet shows, as I usually do!), it looks like thoughtful and existential comedy that’s at the top of my list to watch. — Leslie

“Not the spiders again,” my friend bemoans when I bring them up for the third time in a single week.

Perfectly domed webs, with a spider perched at the apex of each, had begun popping up along the edges of one of my favorite trails in Portland—and I had become increasingly fascinated by them. Why did these spiders choose to build webs like small homes, rather than orb webs, which seemed to make more sense for catching flying insects? Where did they hibernate? How long were their lifespans?

Issue #128: How to Build a Creative Career with Joanna Goddard

Each question branched into a seemingly unending, well, web of additional questions. Sierra Dome Spiders, I learned, have some of the most nuanced mating rituals of any spider. The females build the web, while their male suitors travel nomadically between them, mating before tearing each web down to impede others’ chances at finding the female (at the end the season, the females decide which eggs to fertilize!). The eggs are then encased in a warm silk, to get them through winter, though many adult spiders develop a sort of “antifreeze” in their limbs before temperatures drop. Each piece of information led to more questions (and impassioned, unsolicited fact-sharing among less arachnid-inclined friends). My newfound love of spiders, a species I’ve spent most of my life afraid of, opened my world in a small, but meaningful way.

I truly believe that few things are more sacred, or more worthwhile, than allowing space for curiosity and its generative offspring, creativity. It also surprises me when people share that they aren’t creative, or think that their creativity is tied to their job (though it can be!). To me, creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised, but is universally accessible—whether traveling, cooking dinner, or observing your backyard—and makes life so much richer. To quote my new favorite spider researcher (because… I have one now), “Throw open that window for yourself. Deeply get to know the evolutionary behavioral ecology of some wild yet observable creature, in nature.” Below, I’ve shared seven tips for living a more creative life—and where to begin.