Inspiration

What inspires you?

Today I came to this blog just to see what's here (it's been a while) and this was sitting as a draft from February 2021. Still valid, so posting it now.

It’s a question I ask myself rather often these days. Approaching a year into this pandemic and it feels like many of us can’t find the inspiration we knew - back then. But is that really true?

Not long before this all began I remember driving home from a long work day thinking how nice it would be to get a good snow storm or natural disaster to give us all a little break. Time away from the hectic or stressful workplace we had grown custom to. I don’t think I have the kind of power to change the universe in that way.. but here we are months later and like so many short stories and sailor tales, getting what you asked for isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Yet, I am grateful for things from the pandemic like:

- Things have slowed down. 

- My appreciation of others has gone up, as has my understanding of my own work ethic. 

- I have come to know my husband in deeper and closer ways than I ever thought possible.

- I no longer hold to the idea that I have to do things out of a sense of obligation to anyone but myself. This is perhaps one of the greatest life lessons any of us can truly appreciate in 2021. 

Yet I find myself regularly at the start of this essay. I have all of these matters to appreciate but wonder where to find my inspiration to build, to move, to grow and further good. 

While I appreciate the calm serenity from being content with who you are, what you have, where you are in the moment, I know that I am happiest when I am doing something beyond myself. It may be self-serving at times, or it may be genuinely honest - but I delight in the moments when something my hand has touched reaches beyond my sphere and moves another in a way that builds for good.

The path that leads me there feels like home as well, even when its not smooth and hard to travel. It has an act and a purpose to make me better. When I'm at rest on the path I feel like I'm losing the light of day. The steps are harder to see and more dangerous to travel in the dark.

And I look for inspiration to move me onward, to steady my next step and hasten my gait.

What I seek is the spark that lights the inspiration, the music that moves it to dance, the story that moves it to think, and the hope that causes it to grow. 

I believe those things are all around us. In all we see and do. We push them away sometimes, but like a child we must stop and play. They ask us to, they beg us to, and we owe it to ourselves and to our world to allow them in.

First Things: The Idea Thing

In case you couldn't tell, I'm an emotional person - especially when it comes to things that build people up. It's one of the reasons teaching improv gives me such joy.

There is a commercial for GE called "Ideas Are Scary" https://youtu.be/sfmQvc6tB1o

This commercial gets me every time I see it.

It's both the physical aspect of seeing this thing that people rejected given love and hope - but also the underlying message of the ad that IDEAS need to be nurtured to prosper. We build each other up when we say yes to ideas and give them a culture where they can grow.

First Things: Live inspiration to live

My partner, Ian, is working his way through the Interior Design program at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. I could not be more proud of him as he works toward a goal he has had since just after high school.

CCS is a tough school. Current students, alumni, and faculty all kind of joke about how the end of the semester is always a time of wailing and gnashing of teeth around the campus. The school puts its students through the ringer when it comes to churning out studio projects and designs - but the results are phenomenal and it's a reason why Detroit has one of the best design schools in the country.

So we are in late-nights and stress-days at the Evans/Myers house. Last night I got to watch Ian take designs he's been working through on the computer and pull them together with a lot of fabric, effort, and hot glue - lots of hot glue. I helped a little, holding a piece of leather here so it stays glued there and giving encouragement, as he brought his concept to reality - or at least a prototype of reality. And it was inspiring.

We can be creative thinkers, writers, bloggers... but there is something truly inspirational when we create something with our hands... when we breath new life into an old piece of furniture; when we paint a room a color we've been thinking about; when we draw something simply for the sake of playfulness - we breath inspiration through our actions, our work, our sweat, our tears.

We must live inspiration to live.