Photo by Salihan.com on Flickr

Dear Readers,

This is a tough post for me to write. In fact, I’ve been procrastinating for several days now. But there’s no use putting it off: I’m moving to New York.

This is good news (really!). It’s something my husband and I have wanted to do for a LONG time. We love the thrill of discovering someplace new, and we want to know what it feels like to live somewhere other than Washington, DC. We’ve spent the past 10 years here, and we grew up in Rockville, Maryland — I went to school in Philly, but he went to the University of Maryland, so he’s always been 20 minutes from home. We travel as much as we can, but for years, we’ve craved the experience of living in a new place – to see how it changes us, what it feels like. How it changes the color of our days. Finally, it’s time.

I launched Creative DC over 3 years ago, in May 2006. I was at a boring conference, and when I finally couldn’t take another Powerpoint, I hid out in a corner of the hotel lobby and flipped open my laptop. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was at Blogger.com, starting Creative DC. The idea had been brewing in me for a while, I guess, just below the surface… kind of like this move.

My relationship with DC has been a roller coaster. I went from hating it, to being enthralled by the creative opportunities I discovered here – to feeling as though my time here is up, and I’m ready for something new.  As long-time readers know, Washington Improv Theater is an organization that profoundly transformed my DC experience. I met smart, creative, funny people, and rediscovered my passion for performing. As my sense of who lived in DC started changing, so did my sense of the city itself. I also found Tranquil Space Yoga, the other organization that’s been a major source of fulfillment for me. Through its owner, Kimberly Wilson – who started the studio in her living room – I saw first-hand that it was possible to turn dreams into reality.

I didn’t want anyone else to have to search so hard to find creative life here. Hence, Creative DC.

At first, it was exhilarating – local artists like Rania Hassan and Sean Hennesey started responding to my posts right away, and as I visited their websites, I found links to other artists’ sites, and the city continued to open up before me. Researching stories for this blog forced me to constantly seek out the city’s creative people and projects. I have loved connecting with everyone who comments here – debating ideas about art, discussing DC’s creative community, learning about projects and events around town… it has been a huge source of inspiration.

Over the years, people have emailed me to say they just moved to town, and were struggling to find a creative outlet, until they found Creative DC.  For example:

“I came across your blog because I’m searching for a way to connect with other artistic people and have been feeling discouraged about the seeming lack of a strong DC arts community.  Your blog has been a bright spot for me.”

Knowing that I’m helping people in this way has been incredibly rewarding, and underscores the ongoing challenge of making DC’s creative community known – visible, accessible. Here, I’d be remiss not to give a shout-out to fellow creative evangelist Phillipa Hughes, now a member of the DC Commission of Arts and Humanities, who is an exceptional ambassador for the city’s creative community. If you are looking for creative life in this city: find Phillipa, and you’ll be in good hands.

As for me: In the last year, something started to shift. I was, simply put, tired of promoting creative life in DC. It was there – there was plenty of evidence. I was tired of beating the same drum. Increasingly, I found myself wanting to write about creative living, period – minus the geographic limitation. If something inspired me, and it happened to be in DC, then great – but feeling wed to DC was losing its allure.

At the same time, Jordan and I realized our dream of moving had not died – it had just been hibernating. This summer, we started talking seriously again about moving to New York. Again, this impulse, in large part, is about having an adventure – experiencing life somewhere new. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say, it was exciting to think about living in a place where the creative energy is more palpable.  This is not to say that “DC isn’t creative” – I hope, by now, we can put that myth to rest; but despite all the creative people and projects that fill this city, it’s still hard for me to feel it. This is hard to express – I’m talking about a feeling, a spark, a pulse, that for me, is still missing, even though I could list 100 examples of things happening all over DC that are fascinating and inspiring.  It’s like I got married to DC, when really, I still wanted to see other people.

I’m thrilled, and a little bit scared, but in a good way. We’re putting our house on the market in September, and progress on that front will drive the timing of our move itself. I still plan to write about creative living, but I’m not sure how that will take shape – I bought creativenyc.org and everywherecreative.org, so I have a few options ;). As far as what to do with Creative DC – I’d love your ideas. Please tell me what you’d like to see happen with this space. One option, obviously, is just to archive it – to leave it up, but stop adding new content, so old content is still accessible. Other options include having someone else (or a group of people) run it… or… ?

In the meantime, I’m still here, at least through September. I’ll be sure to let you know about future blogging plans, plus you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook. In other words: I may be leaving DC, but I’m not leaving the web :).

Thank you all so much for reading and supporting Creative DC.

Amanda

Tagged as: essays, linkedin, nyc, thoughts_on_dc