I think a lot of us would agree that the questions “what have you been up to,” and “what’s new,” well-intentioned as they are, are like a 10,000 lumen floodlight turning on 10 inches away from your face. You may know it’s coming, but it still stuns you.
I think that the singular lives of creatives compound the difficulty of answering this, if only because our lives can be so scattershot. Many people have asked me these questions in the last few months, and managing a tentative “oh, I’m working on new music” at best, with very little to show for it, I must admit it’s made me feel not as solid as I’d like.
Now, on day three of having been brought to a true and proper standstill by a nasty cold, I find myself returning over and over again to the idea of lying fallow, the way a field lies fallow to recover from intensive farming. I think I’ve long been intensively farming. I think I’m lying fallow.
Giving in to New Growth
I’m allergic to rest, to being still, even if I pay intellectual lip service to self-care and all that. I think we’ve been so well conditioned to feel always on the back foot that rest feels like a sunk cost, which, of course, is not a restful place to rest from.
When I feel like my efforts are sunk costs, I start spinning my wheels extra hard—I fire up the old thinking machine and start manically brainstorming all the different things I could try this time around to make my life click into place, to find clarity, to finally grab the reins. Something has to drastically change, something has to happen, I think.
Or, for once, nothing has to happen. Maybe nothing has to happen.
Today I’m finally understanding that I’ve been lying fallow, and accepting that I may be lying fallow for a while, for as long as that new thing growing underfoot is in danger of getting trampled. I’ll give it as much space as I can afford, as much space as I can endure. I’m still going to, you know, do stuff, but I am removing the severity, the urgency.
After all, it’s OK! There is no timeline. There are no quotas to meet. No secret sauce for the algorithm. No golden number of singles to release to crack Spotify. No prescribed career script, no milestones, no streaming metrics that’ll legitimize me. No single shape a life takes. Nobody is mad. I’m not in trouble. My worth is not in question.
What remains is trusting in the fact that some things in life cannot be talked about, optimized, or hurried; they just need to take their course. Creativity, healing, grief. Long-lasting change. They move to unseen rhythms. Slow down, trust the process, and find your people.
Trust the Process
And so if you too are feeling like you need to lie fallow and let the soil of you replenish, if you feel the desire to be overrun by wildflowers and perforated by tall grasses before you know what the next crop is, if you wish to become the topology for the daily business of ants, beetles, bees, and caterpillars, I hope that you too can find the trust in yourself to do so. It’s OK. I know it’s hard. Much needs doing. But you’re allowed to do this, and when you finally let yourself do it, we will be glad for you and the clarity you’ll eventually find there.
And if you’re one of those people who find lying fallow comes to them naturally, I am glad for you. You’ve gotta come teach me, though.
Below you’ll find my playlist for lying fallow. It’s also the playlist I’m soaking in to find inspiration for the next record. There’s nothing like gathering all the music that excites you the most and lying down in it like a bed of fertile soil, digging your fingers in, letting it all cross-pollinate in the same garden, and taking cuttings of the most compelling combinations. Check it out! I hope you’ll find something cool you’ve never heard before!
Playlist:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1qmpxESwMdFrIIgrXRtURs
- Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/62983090
Saint Idiot:
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