Inspired by Monotony

Tik. Tok. Tik. Tok. Tik. Tok.

I’m staring at the white walls of my bedroom, trying to transport myself to anywhere else I’ve ever been in order to find that spark. That click. The burst of inspiration that hits and takes my hands to places I didn’t even know existed with the steady movement of my black ballpoint pen. The clock is the only thing marking my progress. Invisible progress, that is, because lately I feel like I haven’t been producing anything at all. So I stare at my wall, expecting a bolt of lightning to find its way from God’s finger to my brain, but nothing comes. I realize that it can’t always float into my mind like a cloud on a sunny day, and it isn’t always as simple as a spark. Sometimes the inspiration is a tear, sometimes it’s a laugh. Sometimes it is so obvious, and today is clearly not one of those days.

I decide to change my surroundings. I grab one of our outdoor reclining chairs and bring it to my driveway. I ease into the chair, embrace the sun reddening my already pink cheeks, and I put on my best thinking music. “This will work,” I say to myself. There’s nothing blocking the strike anymore, no white walls. First, I take in the colors. The lavender tree is sprouting in my yard, the grass is bright green, and the sky is as blue as a pair of dreamy eyes. Eyes closed, I now absorb the sounds. The chirps are refreshing compared to my ticking clock. The wind envelops me, moving gracefully across its stage without ever being seen. Playing children fill the lifelessness of it all, reminding me that there are other people around me who are also searching. I open my eyes and watch as mothers walk their panting dogs and fathers bike by with little girls trailing behind, moving their legs so fast to prove to Daddy that they’re strong enough to keep up.

None of them notice me, and I know that this is the best way to write. A good writer observes. She watches the natural, not the scripted. She is on the outside of the scene taking notes, even if she’s in the center of the room. Yet once again, nothing comes. I surrender to the block, because today just might not be my day.

Folding my chair back up, I say goodbye to the sun and open the door to my house. In the kitchen, I see Mom sitting at the glass table. She and my sister are drawing together on Facetime, from a couple hundred miles away, like they like to do. Dad is putting meat in the smoker on the back porch, his bandana wrapped around his neck, gloves on, armed and ready. It’s smoking Sunday, after all. And my brother is on his way back from sitting in his friend’s driveway – the closest he could get without becoming a threat. We’ve spent so much time together lately, that I miss him, even though it’s only been two hours since he left.

Then I realize what the problem is. Right now, I won’t find my inspiration in one unique moment. I won’t find it in the new and beautiful, the strike of lightning, the flash of feeling. Inspiration is no longer a spark, it is a heartbeat. It is a steadiness. It is in the constant pumping of blood through our veins, the way I can tell you at any time of the day what every single one of my family members is doing. It is in the sameness. The monotony. It’s in the ticking of my clock and the tradition. I put two fingers to my neck and I feel her. She is screaming, waiting for me to notice her. To treat her as the heartbeat she is, the life, and not the occasional pleasure. Suddenly, I find her everywhere and I recognize that the spikes in rhythm are the challenges that are crucial to our consistency, the only way we adapt. We notice the spikes, we feel our pulse, and we steady our breathing.

I pour myself a cold drink and place it to my face to recover from the heat of the sun. I look into the mirror and see the redness of my cheeks, the proof of pulse, the slow rising of my chest. I look myself in the eye and see her, Inspiration, peaking through the windows. And when I turn back around, everything is filtered through her lense.

It’s been two hours since I last saw my brother, and I really miss him, and I like it that way.