Where does inspiration come from? Its something we often have to wait for, it doesnt always come when we want it to. Its lack is found in the blank piece of paper, the empty bobbin, the undyed fiber… Is inspiration like some kind of fickle friend who thinks only of themselves and comes and goes from our lives like a butterfly in the wind? Unreliable, untrustworthy, mostly never there when you want it to be. Thats how inspiration often feels to me. Annoying. Sometimes it can be gone for days, only to return in a rush, which tends to be either like the sun suddenly coming out and pouring its glow all over your skin in a delightful warmth of ideas, or its like the outpouring of beans when you accidentally tip the coffee jar over on the bench and you cant move fast enough to catch the overwhelming escape of thoughts and creativity. Inspiration, you ARE my fickle friend. But. IF inspiration was more like a constant awareness, a consistent and continuous flow of small sparks, something we could count on to always be available, always be the same shape, would it still be.. inspiration? I might curse the days when I know I have creative tasks to perform and inspiration has failed me and not even arrived on the doorstep to be ushered in and put to work. I might find frustration in the blank pages and empty bobbins, but I am starting to think that if I was in a constant state of inspiredness, I would far too quickly take that for granted and treat it like part of the furniture. I think the edge would go off it, the excitement would go out of it. Maybe I would wake up every morning with the thought that, oh yes, another idea, doesn’t matter, I will have ten million more in the next hour anyway so who cares. So today I am going to work on valuing my downtime, loving my blank paper and appreciating its potential to excite me and fill me with a will to be active and alive and inspired, and I am going to work on living with a full appreciation of how much I love my fickle friend despite its tendency to hide when there are deadlines and run away when there are demands! I will work on accepting that I am not an inspiration machine, stop requiring myself to be able to switch inspiration on and off at will, and let it come as it pleases, to be welcomed by me with open arms and a vast amount of appreciation at whatever time it decides to show up. Today my inspiration...

The good days! You know the ones, the moment you wake up you can already feel the excitement simmering away somewhere deep in your chest. I dont know what it is or where it comes from, its just known to me as a good day feeling, especially when it hits me even before first coffee. I can contrast it with slightly less good days of course. Like. yesterday, it started out with some great moments, but punctuated with a really good slice out of my finger because I havent yet learned not to play with scissors, and a kinda flat feeling all afternoon that I blame on the kinda flat weather. It was ok yesterday. I got some stuff done. I played lego. Partly I slept on the couch 😉 But the important bit? I have noticed that the way I am on the inside, totally affects the way other people are on the outside. Does that sound weird? I have started trying to be more conscious of my effect on the people around me. Its far more profound than I had realised. This is not because I am being egotistical or trying to increase my importance in the lives of the people I spend time with. This is me realising that my own frame of mind and the way I am expressing that, spreads to others and impacts them in ways that I would like to be more conscious of. If I am feeling flat, blah, tired, generally just not present, this is just what I get back from other people too. Its not surprising if I think about it 🙂 However what I notice far more is that when I am feeling joyous, creative, enthusiastic, and basically just happy, this is reflected back to me in multiples. Its the times when I laugh the most, turn the music up loud, geek out with my daughter over.. well geeky things 😉 get loud and dont care, make the most creative things and feel the inner glow growing in my chest just because life rocks. I see very clearly that those people I care about pick up on this and respond in such a positive way. This is a really good reminder to me to be considerate, to work on finding that inner something so I can share it better with the people I care about. In essence, its about seeing this same smile light up my daughters face, ten years on, and keeping it there for the next.. many 🙂 Why is this going on my blog? I am not sure 😉 Its part of my trying to be responsible for how I impact others, writing it, sharing...