Day 7. Inspiration

“Waiting for Inspiration” 8×8, oil on canvas, framed.

There is a nervousness to every 31 in 31. Certainly the inspiration will dry up eventually? Surely the words won’t always come. And then what? I wonder if sometimes the business of my life– routine doctor checkups and soccer games and chopping onions and tending to an aging dog–might just take over. I was at an appointment yesterday– the kind where you go, sit, wait, play on your phone– and I thought about what inspiration might look like and how it doesn’t need some glorious landscape to pay a visit. It comes to us while we are doing our normal life things: brushing our teeth, watering the plants, waiting for our name to be called at the doctor’s office. We can certainly ask for it to visit. We just may have to wait. 

Things you Learn in Waiting Rooms

Hummingbirds flap their wings so fast because, 

get this, they have such strong muscles in those tiny bodies

and their wings are shaped for hovering–

something almost no other animals can do–

suspended between this world and the next,

holding the present moment in an agonizing gaze

knowing it will be the first to blink

inspiration, come like a hummingbird

always moving, forever still

visit me even here–

I’ll wait.