Better

This month I’ve been thinking a lot about wellness. After turning in a sizeable new piece last month—one I wrote very quickly under pressure—I gave myself a much-needed four-week break from composing. This fall has been unusually intense: settling into a new place and new routines, stepping into my role with the orchestra, composing this new work, and completing six fellowship applications (one of which took about fourteen hours and was entirely in French, which is very Québec). 

Like many creative people, I have a longstanding habit of pushing too hard and assuming I can absorb whatever workload I take on. I also tend to write quickly; as a deadline approaches, I often get a surprising boost of focus and clarity. With our kids’ school schedules shortening my workdays this year, everything has felt even more compressed. 

Usually, after I turn something in, I crash, recover, get a little sick, and eventually bounce back. But this time was different. As I pushed through this season’s deadlines, something in my body simply stopped compensating. What I’d assumed was just being “run-down” turned out to be the tipping point for a pair of long-silent autoimmune issues that had been progressing beneath the surface for years. By the time the dust settled, those systems weren’t bouncing back. Realizing that this wasn’t a temporary dip but a true turning point in my health was unsettling in a way I wasn’t prepared for. It hasn’t quite sunk in that I’ll need constant medication for the rest of my life, or that this technically counts as a disability. And yet, receiving real answers to long-standing questions has been relieving. 

Creative culture sometimes romanticizes running ourselves into the ground: late nights, skipped meals, endless coffee, jokes about sleeping once we’re dead, all in service of Art. I’ve lived that way for years. But now I need to make genuine changes. I’m also hopeful. With proper treatment, I may regain an energy and clarity I haven’t felt in a very long time. In hindsight, I suspect the reason I often experienced my clearest thinking only during the final sprint wasn’t just adrenaline—it was that my baseline concentration had quietly been affected by an underlying metabolic condition. Adrenaline can temporarily sharpen focus when the body is struggling to use fuel efficiently, and that pattern of long, foggy brainstorming followed by a burst of intense clarity had become part of my creative identity. I’m curious to see how my process shifts as my health stabilizes. 

For now, I’m trying to be patient with my brain and body as I rest, recover, and learn a new rhythm. I’ve been enjoying working on an AI-generated video for my new piece for MakingMUSIC, Microsensorium. The process—part visual art, part puzzle, part problem-solving—has been the perfect creative diversion. Switching mediums between projects has always helped me reset. 

I’m looking forward to the next chapters: new pieces, new clarity, and a renewed respect for the body that allows me to do this work. And I have to say: the care I’ve received here in Louisville has been exceptional. Perhaps not the kind of “community engagement” I expected when I arrived—but it has certainly been the kind I needed. 

-Chelsea Komschlies, Active Creator in Residence