Inspiration Station
So I’m in this inspired mode right now. It makes me wonder what inspiration really is. I remember the times in my life where I felt the most inspired and I think about the conditions that created that for me. Was it environmental, emotional, or like something that came from some kind of divine source?
Even if it was my ‘muse’ that divine source is still within me. It came from me. Maybe god helped or whatever, but I felt something inside me well up with ideas.
I’m thinking of all the fun things I can make my students do in class to make their writing better. I’m also thinking about the times I was most inspired in my own writing. Usually, the times where I was most inspired things were going good in a lot of parts of my life, not just my inner world.
Things are very good right now too. I went on vacation and didn’t gain a pound! That’s a win! I’ve realized I really like my group of friends, I have some seriously good people in my life and they inspire me. My parents are driving me crazy, as usual, but that is not even bothering me as much at the moment.
I feel easy, breezy. I feel as though I’m swimming through life and maybe I can also fly. Like I can paint my life. I’ve also come to realize I really like where I live. I kind of have always had a love/hate relationship with living in Michigan. But the truth is, this is a great area with a lot of diversity, a lot to do, and interesting people.
What more can I ask for? There are a lot of cute cities around here too.
I think I like who I am. I love who I have become, but I also love who I have always been. I’m only growing as a person, which is the natural result of age usually, and I feel like I’ve exponentially grown in the last year or so. I like me. I even like spending time with myself more because I like my own company better now.
I always wonder if that makes me two people. But just like you and me are two people, we are also one. I guess it’s kind of like that. And I do feel a connection to people, a deeper connection. I think being true to myself has allowed me to open up more and be more aware of listening to who others are.
I feel closer to the people in my life even though I’m revaluating some relationships in view of my own personal growth. I don’t think these people have changed as much as I have and therefore the relationship dynamics have changed. Usually for the better, but for some I must create more distance for my own wellbeing.
All of this self-evaluation is helping me become more inspired.
I will say that discipline, making myself do work consistently, is making a huge difference in my feelings of being inspired and inspirational. Just forcing myself to think and write all the time is making it easier to think and write all the time. And the muse likes you to work, she appears before you in the middle of your work, rarely does she come when you are not working. The gods are waiting for us to do the work and then they lend a hand. That’s just my opinion.
But I think most of all inspiration in all its forms comes from cultivating a connection with your soul or spirit. I think inspiration comes from my soul. I think it is one of the ways my soul communicates with me.
My friend told me to think about what my professors taught me when I felt the most inspired in Grad School. I remember my favorite professor an older white gay gentleman from England. He asked me once if I danced while I wrote. I asked him how he could tell. He said he could sense a beat in my fiction, that it sounded like music. He told me to just keep doing what I was doing, and he appreciated how I mixed humor and tragedy with great wit and depth. Also, my grammar issues disappeared the more inspired I was.
So I think it’s time for me to dance again.
I think my muse wants to dance.
nina