The Power of Creative Renaissance

I am a relapsed writer.

From a very young age, writing had always been a core part of my sense of self. The moment that I first understood that someone could not just live, but thrive, by stitching their words together to create an empathetic tapestry of life, I became obsessed with honing my skills to harness that power. My primary school teachers had me pegged to be an author. They looked at a small, pale child who talked too much, and they offered visions for my future. When a teacher – someone who you see as the ultimate authority figure, and the pinnacle of all knowledge and wisdom – tells you straight away that you have that spark, you are instilled with the unshaken faith that you can weather any storm.

It would take sabotage to destroy that desire. A mutiny from within, a demon who always seems to whisper in your ear, at even the most inaccessible of times. It may even take someone who helps feed that beast – knowing that its presence gives them control over your creative spark, over the essence of your very existence.

I let my creative voice fall into limbo, a purgatory of the self, hidden behind my darkest thoughts and obscured by my own self-loathing. It truly is a terrifying feeling to let go of something you love, only for despair and heartbreak to take its place. My creative fire did not go quietly into the good night, though. It survived as embers, smouldering beneath the surface until it reignited during the first lockdown and found its way back into my life, giving me warmth and direction at a point in time when I felt truly disconnected and isolated from everything I had once known.

The fire burned at first to nourish my broken spirit, attempting to re-engage me with passions that would help to heal my soul. And nothing is better for the soul than food. This reconnection with my former passions started simple, by watching chefs I used to idolise like Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Rea, David Chang, and Roy Choi. My creative spirit fed off their inspirations like it was a child in need of nurture.

I used to love cooking and coming up with recipes. Like my writing, I drifted away from this, but settling myself back into cooking came with a rush of ecstasy that I can only compare to truly falling in love for the first time. The kind of love that Robin Williams talked about in Good Will Hunting. The kind of love that you search your entire life for.

Now, you may think I’m getting side-tracked. I don’t blame you. One moment I’m talking about writing, and then all of a sudden cooking becomes the focus – but I assure you that these tangents are linked. My love for cooking brought about a creative renaissance in my life which gave me the power to take back every second, at a time where I felt broken and powerless.

I wasn’t alone in this creative reawakening. All over my social media accounts, I saw stories of people rekindling love affairs with their hobbies. There were bakers who delved much deeper into their cookbooks than banana bread, starting their own independent bakeries from the comfort of their home; florists who, prior to life in confinement, had never possessed a green digit on their hand; and first-time candle makers who would put Serenity by Jan to shame. Someone I follow even started a calligraphy business, detailing the physical beauty of the written word.

Nina Patriarca, an old friend and co-worker, had a head start over all of us born-again creatives: she had attended the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas before the global pandemic confined people to their homes. She grew up with food as a core part of her family life.

“You know, that’s something I did with my Dad all the time and my siblings whenever we were home,” she said as we chatted over the phone. “It was mainly a hobby through middle school and high school, but it was never something I considered as a career.”

The more I talked to Nina, the more that I realised that the extra time we had all been gifted by this year contributed to her creative renaissance, allowing her to own her art form. Sometimes, the pressures of everyday life can prevent us from taking that extra risk when experimenting with things that we love, and this time we were given by the pandemic provided us with a chance to fail without fear.

“I’d never cooked a lot of the things that I’ve now had time to make. Before, I was working all the time, and that was before I added school to the mix. I was starting at eight in the morning and finishing up at 10:30 at night, plus, on top of that there was all the stuff I had to do around the house, and then stuff you need to do in order to take care of yourself.”

Speaking to Nina gave me a moment of clarity and allowed me to reflect on my journey. My newfound time allowed me to start cooking more often, and after several prolonged sessions in the kitchen, I started posting my food to Instagram. At first, this was just for fun through a personal account, but I eventually had the time and confidence to use my furloughed social media skills to create a food blog – a dedicated platform for my creations. Having the confidence to put my food out there to the world brought me back to other pieces of work, old screenplays and short stories that I wrote well over a year before. They had been sitting, gathering virtual dust and clouding up hard drives.

I found one piece that I had written more than four years ago, about how no matter what happened in my life, I would always let my pen be my sword. A sharp tool to be used for equal measures of defence and offence. Reading that brought me to a crucible with every single past version of myself. Was I, at the age of twenty-four, really going to look back at a childhood dream and have the audacity to give up? To tell every past version of myself that it was all just a fantasy?

I couldn’t.

I did the only thing that I could do. I grabbed a leather-bound journal – a graduation gift which had not seen proper use yet – a pen, and then I took a deep breath in. Then out.

As I exhaled, a steady stream of consciousness flourished across the pages. Every fear I ever had, every dream I wanted to live. My life, through my own filtered lens, painted in words. I was reborn. 

It wasn’t easy, writing still isn’t easy, but it gives me a chance to be my most true and authentic self. I am aware of my flaws, and I capture them between the beautiful moments in my life; from simple moments that exemplify good in the world, to early evening walks under Christmas lights, trying to stretch out a pleasant minute into an eternity. 

My journey into myself, embracing my creativity and relapsing into writing, have instilled me with the power to live the life that I had always wanted for myself. Starting 2021 with that power is a definitive moment for the pale primary school kid who wanted to share his creativity and make that his legacy. This is not just a moment, this is a new reality which many are now trying to establish. We will never return to life as it was. We now embark to create a brave new world where our passions dictate our life.

My journey is far from over, and I know that I will stumble and fall at points, but I also know that my words will always give me the power to lift myself back up. I am not the same person that I was last year. I am becoming the truest version of me.

Kieran Daly has a degree in Journalism and Film & Media from the University of Stirling, and is now returning to writing after a long break from the craft.