Clouds, Alaska, & Stars

Saturday was the not so big 2-2.

I'm ready for my quarter-life crisis now, right?

But, seriously, as I think about where I've been and what I've done in my short lifespan thus far, I do feel a bit of a crisis coming on. There are so many things that I would have liked to have checked off on my mental list of dreams (see previous post for a brief draft). In order to preserve my sanity, I decided to think about my life in a smaller scope - say, the past year or so. In the past one or two years, I have done substantially more writing of my own (for me, not for classes). I have a feeling that, eventually, I'm going to need to dedicate an entire bookshelf to my journals. It is these writings and journals that bring me to today's Let's Blog Off topic:

"Where do you get your ideas?"

Normally, I have to cogitate quite a bit on these topics and either [A] try to narrow down my answer to a readable-length (which, doesn't always happen...as you'll know if you stopped by back on March 29th for the topic "What Are You Carrying?") or [B] come up with something - anything - at all.

Not so this time. This time, I laid back on the couch thinking about what I was doing these last couple of years - particularly writing - and considering where I got my ideas for those stories and poems (and, eventually, my little dabblings in paints). I think most writers will agree that ideas and inspiration become one being in the process of creativity. Alot of times, those ideas come from some level of inspiration - you know, the kind of moment where you realize, "Wow. How do I convey the feeling I just had?" or "I can totally see this happening just off to the side of this particular photo, just out of view."

Back in December, while my husband and family were over 2,000 miles away for Christmas, I decided to take up painting. It was something I had always wanted to take a whack at, and an empty house seemed the best place to start. No one to walk by, compromising my chi or whatever. Also, no one to complain when I played the same playlist over and over again. The thing is, I needed that music to take me out of my life, out of my house, out of my own head, and onto the easel or the page or the keyboard. This past December, I happened upon this particular piece and have since been haunted by it. I hope you will too, and find some of the inspiration (and ideas) that it has offered to me.

"Nuvole Bianche" by Ludovico Einaudi

I continued to think about where I have garnered inspiration these past years and have decided on one book in particular that has really stayed with me. Though I have found small sparks within the pages of many books, few of them strike me as a lightning bolt rends a tree in half. This one, however, did just that.

"Into the Wild" by John Krakauer

The story of Christopher McCandless' trek through America and into Alaska has had such resonance in my soul that I find it hard to explain. He cast off everything - his money, his education, his family, his future - in search of something that would have meaning. He left it all behind to find an adventure that would last him a lifetime. He found it. Though, sadly, his lifetime did not outlast the adventure. It is Christopher McCandless' pursuit of this "new and different sun" - as he calls it - that has inspired so much of my own writing. I only hope to instill the passion and vigor with which he lived his life into my own works.

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun" - Christopher McCandless

And, at last, one of my favorite paintings. When I need a moment to clear my head, I close my eyes and think of this. Once my mind has been aired out by the night breezes, I find that the stars often illuminate something I had missed before.

"Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh (1889)

To read where other participants of today's Let's Blog Off get their ideas, click below: