FREE TO JUST BE

Creativity needs space and play time without judgment.

- Linda Commito

I grew up with a workaholic father in a business that enveloped all of us. My dad owned Art’s Variety Store, a 15-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year business. The only time that the store hours were shortened was on Christmas day, by four hours, so that my dad could enjoy dinner with our extended Italian family. It may be hard to believe, but the first and only day that the store was actually closed was for my wedding. (Maybe he should have kept it open!)

So, it came as no surprise when, many years later, I found myself working 60 to 80 hours a week in my home accessory business. The concept of free time as an opportunity to allow creative thoughts and ideas to manifest—or to simply ‘just be’—wasn’t a big part of my reality. It wouldn’t be until decades later, after I sold my business, that I could explore other ways of being in the world.

Concerned about not being productive and fearful that I wouldn’t find anything that I would feel as passionate about, I wrote this poem:

White Space

so unfamiliar.

Open, expansive,

unfulfilled,

yet so full of promise.

The past was a time

of “filling spaces”,

unable to accept

the quiet, emptiness,

the white walls.

And now life is

one big space,

with nothing to do,

but to let go

and just be