One of my resolutions this year was to “keep the portal open”, a phrase borrowed from my friend and sometimes musical collaborator Matt Bachmann. I think it is a more poetic way of talking about the open, perceptive, creative state where ideas and connections come easily and the world is endlessly fascinating. Like many others who have described this, I feel my ego shrink and instead get to be an antenna picking up the infinite signals of the world and mixing them together within my psychic depths. In my experience, this portal is like a stray cat who must be coaxed, slowly fed and nurtured before it becomes a reliable presence.

Even though writing, teaching, and performing music is a big part of my life, I still regularly lose access to this portal. Usually this loss starts from a combination of work and family stress, travel, some sort of light addiction to junk media, a brutal news cycle, and various misguided fears about my music not being good enough that spiral into avoidance. When I am creatively connected it is one of my favorite feelings in the world yet it can feel like swimming against the current as our society is so wired for easy, shallow hits of pleasure in exchange for perpetually fractured attention.

It can become a vicious cycle. When I’m unable to write inspired music, I am more likely to become depressed and seek distractions which make it even harder to attempt to write again. When I was younger I thought inspiration was random or something to be found in faraway places or extraordinary situations. More recently, I’ve been able to see that it doesn’t need to be boom and bust, in fact it is much better if it isn’t. The Artist’s Way teaches (and I agree!) that the tortured artist myth is toxic and untrue but I do think that many other sensitive and creative people are stuck in this same spiral which brings about a lot of pain.

This year I decided to approach this resolution with good old Buddhist “compassionate curiosity” towards self. Soon questions popped up like what happens if I don’t look at my phone for the first hour of the morning? Should I go straight to the piano? Should I write with a notebook, computer, or both? Should I try to write when I feel totally uninspired? Should I set a timer for 20 minutes? Should I make voice memos while I walk? Should Wednesday be a no screen day? How to make practicing not feel like a chore but also still a habit? Do I buy a special scented candle and light it when I’m being creative to “enchant” the space? Should I take more notes or does that take me out of the moment? What if I meditate before each writing session? What if I only have one cup of coffee a day so I don’t get jittery and anxious? What if I keep a notebook next to my bed to catch middle of the night dreamy thoughts? What types of media fill my mind with imagery and ideas and which ones are more numbing? What does actual rest look and feel like? What do other people have to say about these subjects? Why do I overthink everything!!!???

Yet something interesting has come out of this barrage of noticing and questioning. There hasn’t been definitive answers on “how to be” but the mindfulness of the portal itself has made it feel more consistent than ever. Even on a tiring difficult day where I wasn’t able to get into a creative state I can compassionately notice instead of starting a cycle of depression and avoidance. Last time this happened I resolved to at least look at my lyric or song drafts each day even if it was for five minutes for the sake of my feral portal animal mixed metaphor thing.

Yesterday, I put this to the test and had a small breakthrough. Me and L had scheduled a fun but totally packed Friday where I knew I wouldn’t get any studio time. On the short train ride I checked in on some lyric drafts on my phone and had a huge burst of inspiration that tied a song together and clarified some ideas for my whole album. I started to feel the heaviness of my album-in-progress give way to a lightness where the writing was built into the foundations of my life, not as a burden, deadline, or chore but as a process that expands the very way I see the world.

(Art is untitled by Ruth Asawa)