The other day, while searching for ideas to jumpstart my writer’s brain, I decided to haul out from my file cabinet the library of journals fat with notes from lectures I attended as a Vermont College of Fine Arts graduate student. I thumbed through each page, scanning for a word, a phrase, anything that made my heart skip a beat. Aha, after several minutes, it finally happened, the one sentence I needed most to see, to hear, to touch, to taste: “The importance of wasting time.”I let out a long, calming breath, comforted by this affirmation: it’s okay to be idle.

Creative people do take time off from their projects to engage in completely different activities. Maybe a writer takes time to paint or doodle, to play music, to learn a new skill, or to take a nap – imagine that, taking a nap during the day. Such idleness allows time for “incubation,” says Connie May Fowler and Patrick Madden, prolific writers, authors, and VCFA faculty members. This incubation period works best when we first identity the problem with our manuscript, then step away from it, throw all the worrying over it in the trash – and live our lives. (Take that nap.)

Think of the incubation period as a time for “cooking your book,” Connie and Patrick say. Of course, to leave your book, or project, “cooking,” requires trust – trusting that you’ll eventually be served a heaping plate of creativity while you watch for the water to come to a boil, or the edges of your project to turn a sugary golden brown. But if you’re open to the process, if you are curious and interested in every cobwebbed moment, awake and responsive to every random swirl of a leaf, every sigh of a passing stranger, every intentional touch of a hand on the curve of your back, the creativity will come.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. ~ Virginia Woolf

When people learn that I am a writer, they say, “I could never write, I have nothing to write about.” But that’s not true. Stories and narratives are everywhere, even in the narrowest cracks and folds of one’s life. If you can listen, you can write.

When I worked as a wellness nurse, I visited with more than a dozen residents, eighty or older, at independent living facilities. After checking their vital signs, I asked them if there had been any changes in their medications and health I should know about. Mostly, I listened to them share stories about their grandchildren and great grandchildren. Of course, I also listened to their woes. On my pad, I scribbled phrases such as “I wish God would take me already” or “Oh my achin’ legs. I got no legs anymore.” Those captured words were as essential to my work as the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope I used to check the residents’ vital signs, because behind those woes were hidden gems. For example, I remember the day eighty-seven-year-old *Sharon said, “The leaves are quiet.” Sadness oozed its way into my limbs, turning them limp, for what I heard Sharon saying was, “I long for my younger years.” I heard that longing when the lilt in her voice fell on the word “quiet.”

Virginia Woolf said, “Behind the cotton wool is a hidden pattern; that we—I mean that all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art.” In other words, the stories the residents shared made up the hidden pattern behind Woolf’s “cotton wool.” Their stories were an integral part of my writing, thus my own work of art. Their words were an art in and of themselves; they were metaphors for, say, loneliness, hope, fear, all the stuff that comes with aging, and dying.

Let’s take a look at ninety-six-year-old *Martha. During one of my visits with her, she told me she had written her own obituary.“I want to make sure I have as much set before I go so my family isn’t burdened with too much. Would you like to read it?” She pushed it across the table toward me. I couldn’t say no.

I don’t recall the details of what she wrote, other than her list of achievements: a college graduate, a teacher and volunteer, and an active member of her church. Martha told me she knew her time would end soon, that she was ready and had no complaints about the life she had lived. Understandably, talk of death isn’t easy; most people avoid it as if it were a highly contagious virus. But I made a point to listen to her because she needed listening to. What I heard behind the “cotton wool” of Martha’s words was a woman who not only pined to share her acceptance of death, but her anxieties, fears, and curiosities about death itself.

If we allow ourselves to hear the real story behind the “cotton wool,” surely we can weave a tapestry together.

I’ll end this post with a writing exercise for you (not mandatory, but highly recommended). While in a café or restaurant, or in any public venue, listen closely to the conversations taking place nearby. Note what is being said. Think about it for a while and see what kind of tapestry you come up with.

Good luck!

 *To protect privacy, all names are false.