Changing Your Creative Identity
Athlete and author Dimity McDowell on how shift happens
“I expected it to be easy and it wasn’t.” —author Dimity McDowell on writing a book without a partner after writing books with a partner
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 162 with Dimity McDowell
After thirty years of running and building a writing career around running, Dimity McDowell suddenly found herself, for health reasons, unable to participate in this passion that had been such a huge part of her life and your livelihood. In this week’s episode (out this Thursday) we talk with Dimity about her crisis of creative and physical identity and how she explores it in her new book The Twenty-Seventh Mile: How to Smooth the Rough Transition out of Your Running Years. We discuss the embodiment of writing and writing about embodiment, writing a book on her own after writing with a partner, writing about loss, the importance of getting multiple perspectives, and much more.
Before focusing her career on running, Dimity McDowell was a sports journalist, holding staff positions at Self, ESPN: The Magazine, and Sports Illustrated for Women. She co-authored three running books (Run Like a Mother, Train Like a Mother, and Tales from Another Mother Runner) and co-founded Another Mother Runner, an inclusive community for all female runners, with Sarah Bowen Shea. A personal trainer and running coach, she has finished countless races, including Ironman Coeur d’Alene and the Pike’s Peak Half Marathon. Dimity is the mother of two adult children, and lives in Denver with her husband and two dogs.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
How does profound change happen? That’s the question that drives Eric Zimmer’s new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. Zimmer is the host of the popular podcast The One You Feed, a podcast I love to listen to. In this book, inspired by Zen Buddhism, modern psychology, and Zimmer’s own story of battling a heroin addiction thirty years ago, Zimmer speaks of self-compassion and how we make choices congruent with our core values. There are simple practices, big questions, straightforward writing and compelling stories.
While the news does its best to tell us the facts, the poet meets the news with humanity. In The Radio Poems: Transmissions from Colorado, David J. Rothman approaches public events in Colorado with humor, paradox and musicality, honoring the complexities and nuances of our time. And though the poems are a few years old, reading them now we see how the adage rings true, everything old is new again—especially when told through poetry.
Christie:
You really must take a moment to read this delightful story by Katie L. Burke and Rebecca Byerly about people who love and want to protect hermit crabs. It’s far more interesting that it sounds!
My friend Julie wrote a stunning essay for the New York Times Modern Love series about her friend’s decision to end her life at Julie’s home. The essay, “May I End My Life With You?” is also about friendship and the burden of chronic disease. Sit down before you read it.
Give Up Rosemerry, He Wrote in His Letter
with thanks to Zhim
In fact, he didn’t write my name.
In fact, he wrote his own.
Inserting my own name came naturally.
Give up Rosemerry.
How thrilling the sentence became.
“A balancing counterweight,” he wrote,
“for a being who has extreme passion.”
The words swirl in me like a storm.
On a day when the news is of conquering
arrives this simple direction toward surrender.
I become a student of snow.
Give up Rosemerry. Give up.
What beauty arrives as I let go?
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Only our paid subscribers receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support. This week we talk with Dimity about vulnerability as a creative superpower, finding time for joy and pleasure, why it’s important to tell the stories of the everyman who doesn’t conquer the world, and writing a book with a long shelf life.
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
How has your creative identity changed over time?
What is your creative superpower?
I was in one line of creative work (music) and then after cancer was no longer hired. After being frustrated to the point of bitterness, I went back to school and got two degrees in another creative field (art). It was very humbling to start all over again after being very good at what I did. I was fortunate to have a good support system and I think that the years of preparing for my first "life" helped me understand that I wasn't going to be able to just start being someone else, but there were a lot of times where I truly wondered if I could do this and even though I am now enjoying my "second life", I envy those who have been doing this all their lives and have the resumes to show for it.
Thanks for your poem. Your question about creativity identity reminded me that my creative identity threads my whole identity. Even the simple things, like figuring out how to shift my perspective when I discover the bathroom door at the coffee shop is locked, and I have to wait in line, require a fair amount of creative thinking. Is it art? It might be, depending on what I choose to do while waiting in line. Keep up the good work.