📝 End of the Line
📝 End of the Line
On creativity and change
My 2023 started with a big life change: my partner and I decided later in the previous year to take the opportunity our company was offering to move temporarily abroad to work on an exciting project. Last month we’ve been packing our life in London to move to Auckland, New Zealand, for the next two years.
It’s not the first time that I move to live and work to a different country (it is for my partner though); indeed, this is the fifth time after The Netherlands, Australia (yes, I have been already on this far side of the world), Belgium, and the United Kingdom; and the sixth country I will live in including my native Spain. This has made me reflect on how changing context and moving to a different place can bring inspiration and encourage creativity.
The change of context on its own it’s an opportunity for redesigning habits and rituals. My mornings in Auckland will be quite different from the ones in London for sure. Flying to the other side of the world messes up one’s body and time, but precisely because of that, the chaos is an opportunity to start from scratch those New Year resolutions.
Moving to another country is also an opportunity to get to know people from different backgrounds and places, to hear their stories - which I am personally truly excited about. Moving this far, far away (even to the opposite hemisphere) is also a chance to surround yourself with a different place filled with so many new inputs: a different sky, different nature, different architecture, colours…
However, nothing that you’d like to fix will come from the change in context, but from within. This has been my experience so far: change is stimulating and can help us be more creative in the short term, but seeing the beauty in the world, in the long run, and creating opportunities and serendipitous moments, is entirely within us, in the eyes, the senses and the hands of the beholder. And this beauty and miracles can be found everywhere if you know how to look.
New Zealand is the end of the line but the beginning of a new adventure. We have been here for a couple of days and we are still settling, although we’ve already done lots of exploring and I have pinned lots of places I’ll like to come back to sketch. I am truly excited to see and draw all that this country has to offer!
(To be continued…)
✏️✨
Happy sketching!
Ana
Have you ever moved to a different country or place and got inspired by it? It would be great to hear about it! Leave a comment and share your thoughts :)
What an adventure. I've done my native Germany, then London, France, and now Sweden. Each place was perfect for the stage of my life I was in, or maybe it was the place I was in that shaped the stage of life I was in. but all of the moves were a big reset that came each with its own set of inspiration. Enjoy NZ, it's definitely on my list, to visit at least.
Here’s to a great adventure!
Remember everyone, let yourself take an opportunity, plans might change, things might happen, give yourself permission to explore just a bit, or a lot.