“I stopped waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel and lit that bitch myself.”
– Alexandra Elle
My life fell apart in July 2020, and the next July I changed my own story. It was an accident really. After a bruising year, I made a spontaneous promise to a kid heading for a month of summer camp that I would stay near her the whole time in case she needed me. I was just running my mouth because we were both so fragile. Bloop. Problem was, her camp was in Maine. Somehow, through the power of the internet and a total lack of restraint, I ended up renting an (almost) renovated three-story convent in Bar Harbor for the month of July.
Married at nineteen, I had not spent a day of my life independently since 1993. I’d never even been to a movie alone. And all of a sudden I was a divorced girl traveling by myself? For an entire month? Ridiculous. Outrageous. I found myself on the Atlantic Ocean in a small town charming enough to be in a Hallmark Summer Romance, but the romance turned out to be with myself.
Thus, Me Camp was born.
Maybe the best way to explain how much that experience changed my life is to tell you that I am currently at my fifth Me Camp — this time, it’s Yachats, Oregon. The template was set in Bar Harbor: small northern town, cool weather, walkable and bike-able, near water, idyllic and darling. Like, sleepy dogs in all the shops and family-owned bakeries with scratch made bagels every morning. Weathered old bars with names like The Thirsty Whale and Bell’s Tavern. Gorgeous galleries with handmade Petoskey stone jewelry by local artists because that is the state rock. Neighbors friendly enough to invite me to happy hour, brunch, movie night on the porch, because if I am going to be there a whole month, I’m not leaving without some new friends.
Me Camp unlocked something precious. It is hard to uplink the delight to just one factor, because the sum is greater than its parts. Some combination of the slow pace, charming little town, lack of hustle, extravagant independence, and wide open heart to absolutely everything and everyone changed my life. I mean it. I am different.
Among the grab bag of joy Me Camp delivers, it replenishes my creative reserves that are dangerously low by the time I get there. I am unquestionably a creative, but the unfortunate thing about having to make a living is that all that delicious creativity gets squashed by meetings, spreadsheets, and Zoom calls. The work part of my work is so encompassing. All that strategy and business sucks the oxygen from the room, and most of my creative energy gets depleted. I’d say “business” now takes up 80% of my time. I so often have to squeeze my creative work in between all the work work, which makes it sound forced and strained, because it is.
Me Camp is dedicated to creative renewal for me. I front-load tons of work before I leave so the podcast, partner content, and administrative tasks are largely in the bank for July, and I commit to spend most of my time away creatively. Can you imagine the hubris? I don’t worry how much will come of it, because my end game isn’t productivity. It is joy. It is remembering that I am at my best when I am creating.
Last year in South Haven, Michigan, I wrote a huge chunk of Awake which comes out this September. When writing such complicated material, the gift of unforced time cannot be overstated. Knowing I could stretch out the process as long as I needed to, leave for a long lunch overlooking Lake Michigan then come back to the story, the words flowed in an avalanche. I put no pressure on them. I told my memories: “I’m here when you’re ready.” And I was. And they came.
This year at Me Camp, I am recipe testing and writing for my next cookbook. If this sounds like work, you must not know me. The only thing I love more than cooking is writing about cooking. I have lists and ideas, and a standing visit to the Yachats Farmers Market every Sunday on Fourth Street. My kitchen overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Since it never gets out of the 60s, think: windows open, 90s country on the speaker, local produce everywhere, knife in hand, Oregon Pinot Noir in glass nearby. This is absolutely Jen Hatmaker Paradise.
Midlife seems to beg the question for so many of us: What do I love? What lights me up? Some combination of age, empty nesting or close to it, and wisdom is slowing us down and asking us to honor our own creative desires. I see it all around me. Women changing their course, changing their rhythms, changing their hustle. We crave personal expression. And by the way, everyone is a creator. We were literally made to be. We make things out of nothing: food, art, design, stories, beauty, gardens, dancing, dinner parties, music, order, words, adventure, connections. Creative energy takes us in a million directions, but it fills something in us duty can never touch.
I am a writer, not just a worker. I am a maker, not just a manager. I am a dreamer, not just a doer. My gosh, the speed at which I can drift from this.
And of course, I am grounded enough to acknowledge that all of us have to pay our bills, and work is work. We don’t live in fantasy worlds. I am a single parent with no financial partner. I have no secondary safety net. I don’t get to bank on someone else’s salary or retirement. Most of us need to work and have to work (and get to work). I’m not a starry-eyed romanticizer with her head in the clouds.
But it is possible to abandon creativity for an endless grind. We don’t mean for it to happen, but it does. After all, there are only so many hours in a day, and every woman I know is at the center of her family’s universe. Which means absolutely no one is going to tell you to spend some energy on your favorite creative expression. Nooooo ooooone. No child, spouse, partner, or boss is interested in your artistic expression for your own sake. Most people like your productive hours spent bettering their bottom line. If you leave every waking hour up to the preferences of your people, you will never have another hour to yourself.
Thus it is up to you. If you want to nurture your own creativity, you’ll have to damn well decide to do it. It needs to go on a calendar, in a time slot, moved up to the top of the pile. I obviously understand that a month of solo travel is absurd, and something I couldn’t have managed or imagined when I was in the thick of the Family Years. But you know what isn’t absurd? A carved-out Saturday morning. A weekly class you join. A Tuesday afternoon. One weekend off the grid. An overnight at your friend’s cabin. One Thursday night a week when every minute past 7:00 p.m. belongs to you. A weekend away you plan.
What if you claimed some time to create? Oh, create what? Whatever is it you love. If you make something from nothing, that is art. Where would we be without art right now? It might just save the world. Or at any rate, it might save ourselves. You are not just a doer, manager, and worker. You are more than someone’s mom, wife, partner, or colleague. There is a creativity inside you that is special, and you are the only one who can honor it. It may matter for the world, but more than anything, it will matter for you. And that is reason enough.
“Art is the highest form of hope.”
– Gerhard Richter