Blue Weeks and the Rhythms of Creation

In the past month, my niece moved away to college, and my sister got married and moved out. For the past eight years, one or both of them have lived with me and my parents. The steady buzz of people has been constant all that time. This is the first week where that hum has been silenced. My home is quiet, the air is shifting, the days are shortening. It has created the kind of stillness that feels both empty and necessary. It almost feels like the world has slowed down, and I’m trying to match its new rhythm.
As I find that new beat in the world around me, I’m working to fall back into habits that let me unwind and move with it. Rhythms that feel familiar and grounding. At the top of that list is writing. It’s been over a month since I last looked at my book, and while I don’t count that as a failure, it’s a pattern I’d like to break. Moving from working on it regularly to not thinking about it for weeks leaves me feeling guilty.
In trying to get back into the writing mood, I stumbled across a prompt asking me to explain my week with a color. Immediately, I thought of navy blue, one of my favorite colors. To me, navy blue feels cool and almost dreary, but not hopeless or sad. It reminds me of the calm before a storm, without the edge of anxiety. It isn’t quite melancholy, but tranquil… on the verge of sadness. It’s this mood that makes me feel the most in need of creativity, whether that’s reading, writing, crafting, or music. Something about feeling very navy blue makes me feel the most imaginative.
So I sat down this weekend and reread the last couple of chapters I wrote. The break from it allowed me to see it in a slightly different light. I discovered that my somewhat choppy narration (good for tense or suspenseful moments) didn’t serve the quieter scenes as well as I originally seemed to think. But diving back into that world, into those characters, felt really good. It felt like a faint hum in the back of my mind was turning into a tune, one I couldn’t quite remember the words to, but that was still familiar. While I’m still working to set attainable goals for myself as I get back into writing, I have to remind myself that returning to it isn’t about forcing productivity. It’s about rejoining a rhythm I’ve missed but that never truly stopped.
Between editing, brainstorming, and even writing this blog, I’m enjoying the quiet moments filled with the sound of my keys typing away. I’m finding joy in jotting down ideas I want to weave in later. It’s a calming sense of purpose as I fall back into something that, just a couple of months ago, brought me so much joy. At the end of the day, that’s all I’m searching for.