There’s a scene in the new Michael Jackson movie where Michael, who is much younger than his brothers, arrives back at his family home with bags of toys and games. His much older brothers are not interested in playing with him, so he ends up alone in his room. Eventually, he goes into his home studio, and we see him start to create music and plan the album that will become the groundbreaking 34× platinum album, Thriller. Today, in 2026, it is still the best-selling album of all time.
This resonated with me as I’m fascinated with the relationship between creativity and solitude. What would have happened if Michael had spent that time with his brothers? Would the world have missed out on this groundbreaking masterpiece? As someone with a chronic illness who is often forced to spend time alone, I recognise that it has also enabled me to have more space to reflect and feed my creativity.
Being an artist requires time alone, but that also is something that can bear a lot of fruit. We need solitude to create, but also a community of people who understand the creative mind; otherwise, that solitude turns into loneliness. Michael sought out the best in the business to make his dreams come alive; Quincy Jones, Michael Landis, Martin Scorsese, Alvin Ailey, the list goes on.
What I’ve been up to: Art exhibition and a look at emotions in the book of Psalms
This month, I’ve been dogged by a horrible virus that seems to have gone around and seemed quite hard to shake, which has been frustrating and held me back a bit, although I’m on the mend.
I didn’t manage to make it to the open mic as planned, but I did manage to see the Nigerian Modernism exhibition at the Tate Modern, which I really enjoyed. There was such a range of styles, and it was refreshing to see paintings of ordinary Nigerian people and their everyday life – lots of inspiration there.
A theme that has come up this month is fully expressing emotions. It was a topic that came up at my church’s weekend of events. I had the opportunity to speak with the young people about my journey with poetry and how it helps me express my emotions to God.
We looked at the Psalms, 150 poem-prayers written mostly by King David, who brings a wide range of emotions from frustration, anger, remorse, and joy, to God. One of the speakers in a different session showed this diagram, which I found helpful for exploring and recognising less dramatic emotions like ‘uneasy’, ‘sure’, and ‘miserable’. (You can listen to the full list on the audio version of the article.)
You can slip into some of these emotions so easily without really realising it. I also think that intimacy involves sharing the ‘quieter’ emotions, and we don’t often bring these to God. Which emotions do you feel hardest to recognise? Let me know.
Give me joy in my heart
An emotion I’ve been thinking about and feeling lately is joy, which can also creep up on you. It’s a kind of steady state of being rather than a peak of emotion like happiness. I also accidentally joined a wonderful session with author Holly Ringland after an online writing session. She shared a powerful story of how the death of her partner led her to embrace creativity and joy radically. She has just published a new book, ‘The House that Joy Built’, which I’m going to put on my to-read list.
I also shared a new poem called ‘Sacred city morning’ in case you missed it, inspired by photo taken on my early morning walk.
This month, I’m mainly catching up with myself and continuing to plan what I want to do this year and how I want to do it. I’m going to try to make it to the KataKata open mic again this month.
That’s it for now, thanks for lending me a few minutes from your day. I appreciate your time and support.
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Till next time Kindreds!