What Inspires You? her perspective

Sometimes I sit down to write this column and nothing comes to mind. I spoke to a friend about this and he said, “Well just go with it – write about nothing.” I tried to channel my inner Seinfeld but all that resulted was a blank page. And the word Seinfeldian but I used that last month.

Music inspires me so I listened to “Nothing from Nothing” by Billy Preston, “Nothing to Say” by the Kinks and “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits.

Still a blank page.

Then I turned to books. Books never let me down. They are always there for me, chock-full of inspiration. One of my favorite books by Merriam-Webster conveyed this to me: inspiration means to breathe life into. Whoa, that’s deep.

Hoping something fantastic would flow out, I took a deep breath. Alas, nothing but coffee breath. Back to the books.

My book club recently read “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison. In the afterword, Morrison explains she was inspired to write this book by a conversation she had in elementary school with a little girl who longed for blue eyes.

“Implicit in her desire,” Morrison observed, “was racial selfloathing.”

The author wondered how her friend had internalized society’s racist beauty standards at such a young age.

Another recent book club book was “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. Asked about her inspiration for the story, Van Pelt said, “I was in this writing class, the first writing class I’ve ever taken. The teacher gave us a writing exercise to write from an unusual point of view. And I thought, I’m gonna be an octopus and talk about how frustrated I am at these silly humans that are such an inferior species, and here I am the one that’s contained. That ended up becoming the first chapter of the book.”

One of my favorite books is “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving. Irving, like Morrison, based Owen Meany on a childhood friend. The author was home in Exeter, New Hampshire, for Christmas in the early ’80s, where he and his childhood friends were discussing other friends who had gone to Vietnam and never came back, or who had come back but were messed up from the experience. “A Prayer for Owen Meany” is full of homages to other novels. “Many writers become writers because of something they read. Homage is simply recognizing and acknowledging your ancestors,” said Irving in an interview with the Denver Post.

Hmmm, still a blank page. Maybe I should take an inspirational writing class. Where is my snarky octopus voice when I need it?

Or focus on an inspirational childhood friend. Just then, easily distracted, I heard a thwap at my doorstep. A package! A birthday gift from my sister –a book! She sent me “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin. How did she know?

Like magic, I opened it up to a random page and this is what I read, “Most of what we see in the world holds the potential to inspire astonishment if looked at from a less jaded perspective Train yourself to see the awe behind the obvious. Look at the world from this vantage point as often as possible. Submerge yourself.”

In the nick of time, the muse slipped into my house and into my psyche by stowing away in an Amazon box. She shows up the day before deadline every month!

Two more quotes from Rubin’s book spoke to me: “Look for what you notice but no one else sees.”

“The real work of an artist is a way of being in the world. A hunger to see beautiful things, hear beautiful sounds, feel deeper sensations. To learn, and to be fascinated and surprised on a continual basis.”

Color me inspired. I will continue my journey – hungry to see beautiful things, hear beautiful sounds and feel deeper sensations. I want to see the awe behind the obvious. I want to notice what no one else sees. And write about it.