It's getting warmer.
Although it's still not as warm as I'd like, sunlight is streaming through my office window. It hits the desk and pottery pen holder at such an angle I can't help but be inspired. Through this window, I can see part of the alleyway. At the moment, it's fairly noisy. Four or five boys, my brother included, set up a temporary skate park with random alley way objects. Someone has a stereo and music is blasting through it. Winter is slowly evaporating away with every sunny day, and everyone is taking advantage of it. I even feel a bit better inside, which is surprising, seeing the last few months have been pretty hard for me. Something about the warmer air coming through, that at last we can see the very small beginnings of spring and summer, it fills me with optimism. When I'm optimistic, I tend to write better than when I'm bummed. I tend to get . . . more inspired, you could say.
Don't get me wrong, I will miss winter. I'll miss the trees draped in snow, cheeks cherry red from the cold. I'll miss sitting inside with a cup of coffee and staring out the same office window I do now, mesmerized by the footprints in the snow.
This means nothing to most of you, and I understand that. It's my inspiration. This small view from my office window lets me see some of the things that inspire me most. I can see rooftops, thin tree branches, the alleyway where there always seems to be so much action. I look to the right of my arm and see the narrow strip of sunlight hitting the dark mahogany desk that makes me want to sit down and write all day.
It's my inspiration. Winter and all the things I listed that come with it inspired me then, and now we have a whole new season upon us that will show me things that will inspire me even further.
None of us have the same inspiration. It's easier to pin for us writers. We can usually tell what really inspires us because we write about, whether in poems, songs, articles, or on the scraps of notebook paper that we call a journal. Even if we don't like to write, all of us have an inspiration. Every single one. For some, it's music. Actually, it's music for many, myself included. It could be fashion, you know, that one flowing black dress that inspires you to become a designer, or at least draw. It could be a poet, an artist, a friend, a lamp. Anything can be an inspiration.
The definition for inspiration is; "Arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity." Some inspirations are just thought provoking; some make us want to make changes in our life. Others want us to set our life on a whole new direction altogether.
I wish I could say I had found one of those, but so far, I haven't. I'm inspired often, actually. Sometimes too often. In the middle of the night, I'll get up to write something down that I want to write about, or at least think more about when my mind isn't in such a sleepy state. Still, though I have small inspirations often, a street corner or a painting, I haven't had one that has really hit me deep yet. I wish I has. What an amazing feeling it would be to see or hear something that would affect you so greatly.
I believe my oldest brother Derek's inspiration was Steven Morrissey, the singer of The Smiths. Although I do love the Smiths, my love is nothing like Derek's. I know the band, the vocalist especially, has inspired him greatly. Derek has gone through some rough times, and I think their music really helped pull him out of it.
You have an inspiration. Is it something large like a band, a person, a parent, a cause, a religion? Religion, especially, can be the hugest inspirations. Or is it something smaller, something tiny, the shadow of a tree in your yard, a quote, the rise and fall of a voice? Something so insignificant but it inspires your thinking, perhaps into something like a poem or, like it frequently is for me, an article?
These inspirations make up who we are. They are all part of the big picture, our soul. Inspirations are the roots of creativity, and all of us know how big of a part creativity is in our personality.
Yes, it's getting warmer. So is my heart, I think. In the last six months, my writing and my thoughts have seemed darker, as you all may have noticed. But I think, like Derek does in his moods, I'm pulling out of it. The sun is just starting to go down by now. It still casts a perfect ray of sunlight onto my desk, but it's slowly getting smaller. Still so beautiful. I'm sure you can't imagine how poetic it is, sunlight on a desk, so what? Aha! But you see, it's my inspiration. I would probably say the same thing about the shadow of the tree in your front yard. That is your inspiration.
Such big parts of us, our inspirations are, yet they can be so small.
