“Creativity is an awful lot like sex. If it always has to be great, that creates a certain amount of performance anxiety. If, instead, you experiment a little, even when you’re not in the mood and don’t have time for a long candlelight dinner with your muse, interesting things may start to develop. You are married to your creativity, not just out on a first date.”

—Julia Cameron, The Vein of Gold

A few minutes from my house, and just down the road from where I keep Tank, there is a blueberry farm that is now open for U-picking. After several weeks of unseasonably hot and humid weather, this weekend was fresh and spring like—the sun shining from a cobalt sky dotted with cottony clouds, so I decided to go blueberry picking for the first time. Here’s what happened:

Acres of blueberry bushes

After I park my car, the farm proprietor ties a white plastic bucket around my waist and tells me which sections were picked for market and which should have berries left. I walk down the grassy road between berry sections and choose my spot. There are other pickers scattered through the rows, a few with children in tow. U-picking with kids is popular, and this is one of the first weekends the farm is open. I see several generations of family members, from grandparents to toddlers, enjoying the experience.

And that’s why I’m here: to enjoy the experience. This is an artist’s date as well as a way to stock my freezer with fresh blueberries.

Once I choose my section, I begin slowly walking between the rows of shoulder- to head-high blueberry bushes. It takes me a few moments for my eyes to adjust to seeing the plump purple berries hidden in the foliage. I drop my first berries in my bucket with a thunk. While I search with my eyes, my ears listen to the sounds around me: the breeze flirting with berry bushes, the lady in the red t-shirt humming along with her iPod, the children calling out excitedly, and even the loud speakers periodically blaring screechy bird sounds to keep away other birds who would eat the berries. My mind is free to wander, but I find it mostly stays quiet, absorbed in the task of looking carefully for the ripe berries. I deliberately pick a few unripe berries to paint because they’re such pretty colors. I also remember and use Laure Ferlita’s advice to look up, look down, look all around.

As in life, in blueberry picking, it pays to go slowly, look carefully, and be gentle (so the fruit doesn’t fall on the ground instead of into your fingers). You need to look at the bushes from several different angles, and sometimes you will find perfect berries missed by others who have worked the same row. This is sort of like the process of creativity—good ideas, ripe for the picking are out there, waiting for the right person to come along.

It takes me about two hours to fill my bucket. I probably could have moved to a section with more berries per bush, but for once I’m not in a hurry. It is a pleasure to be doing one thing and one thing only. Once my bucket is full, I return to the entrance, pay my money, and carry a plastic grocery bag to my car filled with my bounty.

When I get home, I’ll have the work of drying out the berries (they don’t like to be wet), freezing them, and deciding what I want to do with the ones I won’t freeze. Blueberry muffins for my son, and lemon blueberry scones for me, I think.

“Even if you never go near the arts, you are creating away like mad every single day, working in the medium of experience itself. Actions, objects, words, gestures—literally anything you influence by your choices becomes part of your creation. Every time you voice your thoughts to a loved one, or cook a meal, or choose a new bar of soap for the dish by your bathtub, you are creating a modification in space or time that would never have existed without you. Whether consciously or unconsciously, you have more power to create your own life than anyone or anything else.”

—Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

I always hate to see April go. In May we usually start getting summer weather: temps in the 90s and rising humidity. And we all know how much I love summer in Florida. Not.

But it’s not summer yet, and I have happy things to look forward to in May—including a visit from my sisters- and brothers-in-law. Maybe I’ll create a summer fun list or a reading project. I’m also working on plans for a belated anniversary trip with my husband. Time to start planning for simple pleasures and everyday adventures to look forward to during my least favorite time of year.

Speaking of simple pleasures and everyday adventures, I’m planning to take the next couple of weeks for some creative well filling. While I’m gone, I’ve scheduled some “reruns” and quotes so the blog won’t be dark.

Be back soon!

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Stuart Dybek was born in Chicago, where there are at least a couple of hundred hotels a poet might stroll past, looking up at the windows. Here's a poem from his book, Streets in Their Own Ink, from Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Sometimes they are the only thing beautiful

about a hotel.

Like transients,

come winter they have a way of disappearing,

disguised as dirty light,

limp beside a puttied pane.

Then some April afternoon

a roomer jacks a window open,

 a breeze intrudes,

resuscitates memory,

and suddenly they want to fly,

while men,

looking up from the street,

are deceived a moment

into thinking

a girl in an upper story

is waving.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2004 by Stuart Dybek, “Curtains,” (Streets in Their Own Ink, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004. Poem reprinted by permission of Stuart Dybek and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

If you’ve been reading Catching Happiness for a while, you know I’m big on baby steps and small changes. Small is less intimidating and scary. Like most people, I feel less resistance to small changes and adjustments than to big, sweeping reorganizations. And when I’m feeling resistant to change, or struggling with a big goal or project, one way to break through that resistance is to find the absolute smallest next step and take it.

On days when I find it hard to write, I sneak beneath my resistance radar by tackling one small detail, or setting my timer for 15 minutes and allowing myself to stop writing after it goes off. Instead of reorganizing my whole house, I clean out one drawer. (I love you Marie Kondo, but I can’t do it your way.) I’ve been practicing French with the Duolingo app for months because it takes less than 10 minutes to complete my daily goal. I probably won’t become fluent this way, but I’m learning and having fun, and certainly known more of the language than if I had done nothing at all. (And I know how to say, “There’s a cow in the living room!”* in French, for which I will be forever grateful!)

We sometimes make the mistake of thinking only a big gesture or major commitment will do if we want to make an impact. That’s not always true—often it’s a small thing that makes you stand out. The authors of The Power of Small, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, call it “going the extra inch.” And even an extra inch is something many people just don’t get around to. As Thaler and Koval write, “We often think about taking that extra step. A nagging thought crosses our minds as we’re racing to complete nine other tasks, worrying over how far behind we are on the day’s to-do list. Unfortunately, we don’t heed that inner voice. We forget. Or we get too busy and that mental Post-it note gets lost in the tsunami of other demands.”

There are plenty of tiny steps that will help us reach our goals and make us happier: If we want to give more to charity, start by donating $5. If we want to keep in better touch with friends or family, send a text message that we’re thinking about them. If we want to read more, pick up a collection of short stories or essays we can easily dip into. Don’t try to write a book—write a sentence.

Here are a few small things I love:

What are a few of your favorite small things?

“I don’t mean that we should sell ourselves short or be cavalier about our potential or responsibilities. But I do think that, misled by self-critical and self-punishing voices, one can easily misconstrue one’s calling. In thinking we need to Change the World, we may miss opportunities to perform the small yet profound acts of which we’re truly capable.”

—Sarah Juniper Rabkin, What I Learned at Bug Camp

Last week, after a poor night’s sleep, I sat at my desk handling a number of small, irritating-but-necessary tasks. Outside, the sky was gray, threatening rain. I ran into minor problems with a couple of my tasks, and by lunchtime I was feeling frustrated, tired, and as if a heavy weight lay over my head. Nothing terrible had happened, but tell that to my mood. Sometimes it doesn’t take something big to influence your mood—little things add up.

Little bad or irritating things all morning can add up to a grumpy, out-of-sorts afternoon. (As I was typing this sentence, I typed grumply instead of grumpy—and I rather like it! It sounds just like I felt!)

Little good things, on the other hand—simple pleasures or happy little things, whatever you want to call them—can improve an ordinary or even a grumply day.

On the day in question, I treated myself to a cup of good quality hot chocolate, and an afternoon visit to my horse. It helped.

More happy little things I turn to to keep the grumply days at bay:

It also pays to nip small nuisances in the bud whenever possible—replacing the kitchen tool that doesn’t work properly and annoys you every time you use it, or making sure each location that needs it has a set of scissors, a note pad and pen, for example.

In April on Catching Happiness, we’re going to explore how little things, baby steps, and tiny changes can add up to a happier life. I hope you’ll join me!

What are some happy little things that lift your mood? 

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Marge Saiser, who lives in Nebraska, is a fine and a very lucky poet. With the passing of each year her poems have gotten stronger and deeper. That's an enviable direction for a writer. This poem was published in The Briar Cliff Review and it looks back wisely and wistfully over a rich life. Saiser's most recent book is The Woman in the Moon from the Backwaters Press.

Weren’t We Beautiful

growing into ourselves

earnest and funny we were

angels of some kind, smiling visitors

the light we lived in was gorgeous

we looked up and into the camera

the ordinary things we did with our hands

or how we turned and walked

or looked back we lifted the child

spooned food into his mouth

the camera held it, stayed it

there we are in our lives as if

we had all time

as if we would stand in that room

and wear that shirt those glasses

as if that light

without end

would shine on us

and from us.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2018 by Marjorie Saiser, "Weren't We Beautiful," from The Briar Cliff Review, (Vol. 30, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.