inspiration

Here’s the deal — I’ve been struggling to write this post. It was just supposed to be a quick-and-easy, short little review of a single chapter from Patrica Donegan’s book, Haiku Mind. Instead, it turned into a ball and chain.

I knew which chapter I wanted to write about, too. Chapter 75. It discusses creativity and imagination, two traits I respect, admire and hold dear as a writer.

The irony, though, is that I couldn’t find the creativity, the imagination, or the motivation to actually sit down and write anything on the topic.

To prove my point, I’ll tell you that it’s Saturday right now. It’s 2 pm. Yet publishing this entry was on my list of things to do for Monday afternoon. I’ve managed to push this off for five whole days.

But now I’m back on track, or at least I’m catching up, and I have Fran Drescher to thank.

She came through Minneapolis the other night, on a speaking circuit, and I went to hear her talk. One of things she talked about the process of developing “The Nanny”.

Apparently, just before the show performed its pilot episode, the producers got a call from an advertiser who was willing to buy a bunch of ad slots if the writers would change the nanny character (Fran) from being a Jewish girl to an Italian girl.

Fran refused, but not on the politics. She refused out of creative integrity. She could have played an Italian girl, she said. She could have pulled it off, but …

But not for the long-term. Fran Drescher as an Italian nanny wouldn’t have been as authentic, and in order for the show to have any chance at going the distance, it needed to ring true.

She said: I had to listen to the voice inside me because the voice inside me is the closest to my creator.

As soon as she said these words, I immediately connected them to chapter 75 in the book Haiku Mind, the chapter that is all about creativity and imagination.

The haiku that starts this chapter was written by Diane di Prima. It reads:

the inner tide –

what moon does it follow?

I wait for a poem.

The inner tide. The inner voice. They are flip sides of the same coin. The inner tide brings a wash of ideas; the inner voice communicates them. And each is as mysterious as our creator.

We wait for these messages from the beyond — for these ideas, these sparks, these words of guidance — knowing that they will come, but often left wondering exactly when they will show up.

If only we could put a lease and collar on our inner tide so that we could call it up at exact moments whenever we needed a little bit of extra juice.

Instead, we must learn that inspiration strikes in its own time. Our creativity doesn’t always peak when we want it to. And sometimes, words of wisdom are frustratingly silent.

But they come. They all come. In due time. They always do. The trick is, we have to keep ourselves open for their arrival.

Find Haiku Mind on Amazon:
Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart

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Mar 01