July 22, 2007
Back in September, Jennifer and I took the girls for their first trip to Erie Lake. This was the first time we went to visit my best friend in Sheffield, OH. It would take forever for me to explain how I feel about staying by the lake, waking at 6:00 in the morning and standing speechlessly along the shore to listen to the water. I wrote an article about it for the WV Writers Newsletter:
It happened again. While sinking into a comfortable lounge chair on my best friend’s front porch, staring out at the seemingly endless stretch of Erie Lake, my brain toyed with a familiar thought: I could spend the rest of my life right here. I’m not sure how long this lasted, and hour or so, watching an army of gulls brave the air like hang gliders daring the northern breeze.
The air was cool, but I barely noticed, as I watched the stormy winds bring ocean force waves rolling against the sand. My friend explained that he had never seen it like this, that the waves were usually much calmer. “You’ve come at a bad time.” I could not help but disagree as I watched one of the gulls bobbing on the water like an abandoned buoy, warning the empty waters of danger.
This feeling, that I could belong somewhere and find the contentment I’ve been looking for, was not new. It happened three years ago, in Virginia Beach, as I watched a group of dolphins break above the tide and eventually disappear into deeper waters. I could spend the rest of my life right here. It was another moment when everything around me seemed to mingle into a force that worked its magic to make that moment one of the most perfect I have ever felt. Again, I was adding all of the reasons I could find contentment in a place other than home.
Robert Frost was a poet who seemed to share my feelings, but was much better at putting it into words than I. “Heaven gives its glimpses only to those not in position to look too close.” It is never when we are looking for contentment that we find it at its most powerful. Sure, we may find a temporary peace brought on by a rainstorm or the sound of birds outside our window. But most of the time it is when we are in a strange place, not expecting much more than the discomfort of adapting to a new environment, that the skies become a unique mix of blue, burgundy, and gold, the wind gathers enough strength to increase the sounds created by its movement, and everything seems to be more beautiful than you imagined it before.
What does all of this have to do with writing? Inspiration works almost the same. Often, when we are seeking it, it is nowhere to be found and we feel that pull to give up, call it quits, find a more rewarding hobby. But when we least expect it, our eyes are opened to something we may have never seen before, or changed so that we see it in new ways, and the pull transforms into a desire to put it all down on paper.
I hope inspiration will find you when you least expect it. In your lowest times, when you are ready to give up, I hope you will experience the joy that comes when inspiration swoops you up and the right words pour out of your mind like rain. I guarantee you will never forget it.
