This World and the Other

Things that are supposed to inspire the adult life are bought, built or birthed. By that standard I am doing nicely.
I bought my house (and am still paying for the privilege), bought my car, bought shoes and clothes (and frequently even wear them- now that has you thinking doesn't it :) I bought furniture to sit on and sleep on and furniture to hold more of the stuff that I bought. I even bought some furniture just to stand there and look pretty. I bought music and books and tickets to plays. I bought food and stuff to keep it warm and other stuff to keep it cool. It's safe to say that I have bought my fair share of stuff.
But has any of it inspired me?
Yes. If your definition of inspire is to provoke someone to do something than I have had many inspiring purchases that made me spend money. If only my husband could understand how truly inspired I was at the time.
But this is not the inspiration I speak of.

Other things I have built.
Suffice to say they have been more inspiring.
I built a teaching career, a marriage and many friendships. I have built the right to speak in certain circles, the right to be taken seriously and, my personal favorite, the right to get in a boxing ring and smack other girls.
Did all this building inspire me?
Yes, if you definition of inspiration is to stimulate a particular feeling.
There are plenty of feelings when I step into a boxing ring. Plenty of feelings when she eyes off against me. Plenty of feelings when my husband yells out "Smack her!" from the side lines.
But even this is not the inspiration I speak of.

Then there are those things in my life that I have birthed. Two of them are tucked up in their beds right now, the littlest sucking his thumb loudly.
I have birthed a mother, birthed the woman I want to be for my children and husband, and birthed a new sense of self after life changing news. All these things have turned my face to both the sun and stars and made me look at the comings and goings of life with new eyes.
But have they inspired me?
Yes, if the sum of who I am is a mother, a wife or even a woman. Yet I have found it is rarely inspiring simply to be. My sons' inspire me in the way their father inspires me, and yet there is more.

What inspires the inner part of me, the part that searches to express herself, the part that wants inspiration to take her into moonlight writing hours fueled by something inside that won't let go is very simple, and always with a good dose of the fantastical.

My definition of inspiration is that which draws wings upon you back. It is that which smells like a rose to you and you alone and promotes a creative expression of who you are and the unique world that wraps around your life.

I am inspired by the thought of stepping into a puddle and being sucked down into another world, by stones that look hard and round as they should, but would squeal if picked up or squeezed. I am inspired trees that make me believe they could reach out their gnarled hands and draw me close.

I am inspired by Lego ships that my son and I build and the wars we know will fly off into and by the smell of my youngest son's hair, imagining what flavor it would be if it were ice cream. I am inspired by my husband's hand on my shoulder as we dance to no music but the sounds of all the songs we have listened to over the last 12 years. In my mind I can see the notes as they spin around us, I feel the light of the street lamp as it invites itself into our living room, a friendly visitor that says nothing and sees nothing. It is there only that we might see in the semi darkness.

These are the true inspirations of my adult life. It is not so much what is in this world, but the depth and fullness of my  reality and how it invites out of this world imaginings. The sum of which are the expression of everything I am. Now that is inspiration.

What about you? What does inspiration mean to you and why?

Steal My Attention

(photo by Tabitha Bird)

"In a world that demands attention, it's the little things that steal mine."

It was the end of the day that had called my name. Called it long and called it hard. Do you know the day I mean? The one with the music playing so repetitively the lyrics lose their meaning.
That day.
And on that day, at the end of that day, I stole away to a place where the leaves of tree hum the song of twilight. There, with my camera I remembered something.
Something little.

Children are the masters of 'seeing little.'
Two Lego bricks are dinosaurs. Stick are swords. Roads made of sheets and pillows are rivers with crocodiles in them. With such imaginations, children follow a row of ants and they pick up the rust-coloured leaves because such things are whole new ways of seeing the world. The ants are friends off to a picnic, or tiny spies sent by a bug army. The leaf is a fairy's hat or a dragon's lunch.

That's when I remembered. Just me and the camera. And the stillness. What a threesome we were, what a grand party, because who should find me but the child I once was.
Inside me she whispered, "Do you see how the grasshopper bends the blade of grass it sits on? Look at the rock with eye pattern. Touch the speckled feather."

It was that same child who saw the dragonfly. There on a branch above my head.
Sitting. Seeing. Watching me.
Watching me while I was quiet.
Watching me while I found the magic.
Watching me while I remembered how to let a dragonfly steal my attention.


What about you? Life is very loud. What steals your attention?

There's Something About Boats

(photo by Tabitha Bird)

Stories are held in the fibres of crackled paint and arthritic wood. If you have an ear to see and and eye to listen, you too will know...

There's something about little boats.

As a child I sat on the shore lines wanting to touch them. They were the rubber duckies of the grown up world only here the bathtub was filled with ocean water. Bobbing colors reflected on the waves, teasing me with how out of reach they were until the tide finished playing with them and washed them up on the beach.

Even then I knew there was a rhythm to little boats. A sigh. An exhale all of their own. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. Ebb and flow. Come and go. To and fro as they moved with the watery hands beneath them. Hypnotic. Calming. But it's more than this.

There's a story to little boats.

They are the books of the sea carrying their own history in the very being of their wooded hulls. With every curl of weathered paint, with every scar on their frame, they speak. Telling their tales only to those who can imagine, using the language of those who can create their own worlds. If you have an ear to see and an eye to hear then you too will know...

There's something about little boats.

~

What about you? Do you find stories off the pages? What else besides books holds a tale for you?

The Art of Thoughting

(photo by Tabitha Bird)

When he was little his daddy and I would often catch him like this.

"What are you doing?" we'd ask.

"I'm  thoughting."

"Thoughting?"

"Uh huh. I'm thoughting about all the things I haven't thought about yet."

And we'd leave him to it. Because Thoughting is very important, wouldn't you agree?

The art of drifting off with dandelions and dragonflies, to wander down whatever interesting summer paths your mind finds. To linger softly on the edges of possibilities. Imagining what if, and what might become of, and what isn't, but could be.

For Thoughting is the start of great things. Trees that haven't been climbed. A stream unexplored Books yet to be born. Stories yet to be told. A wish still closed in your heart. A belief in yourself that has yet to be watered.

They all begin with Thoughting.

The mind needs its Thoughting. Its wanting and wishing and dreaming. Such things are the mind's gift to  the soul.

So, go Thought something.

A kernel. A bud. A seed. Thought it long and Thought it hard, and eventually the Thoughting will carry you away. To a place that even little boys know how to find. Dreaming the impossible.

~

What about you? What are you Thoughting today?

Think an Impossible Thing.

All children know this. Alice in Wonderland gave it voice. And picture books weave their appeal around the idea. But somehow the older we get the more foolish we are told it is. 

Think impossible things. 

It is a simple idea. 

When I was little I painted in the air with imaginary colors that tasted like strawberries and cupcakes. Alice in wonderland liked to think six impossible things before breakfast. And that landed her in the adventure of her lifetime. 

My six year old son and I make a regular practice of thinking impossible things. When he was nervous about the school spelling test I told him to take me in his back pocket. 

"How?" he asked. 

"Well, all Mommy's can shrink so their kids can fit them in their pockets and take them anywhere they need to," I said.

"Really?"

"Yes. Here, look." And I handed him an imaginary shrunken version of myself. 

Tonight he came running in to our office to kiss me goodnight holding nothing firmly between his hands and said "Look, Mommy. Look what my magic computer printed out!"

I looked at the nothing he was holding. "Oh cool, Isaiah. Did you do that yourself?"

"Yes. It is a letter. Can you read it?"

Of course I could. "Sure," I said. "It says you are the bestest Mommy in all the galaxies in the world and I want to give you chocolate for breakfast everyday."

He laughed. 

"Oh, and there is a picture of you and I. That's a great drawing!" And I gave him a big kiss. He ran off pleased as anything with himself. 

So, care to join us? Care to think an impossible thing?  

Try. 

What about this one. 

Your words will matter to more people than you will ever meet. 

Or this one.

One day you will sit at the top of your tallest dream and cry those happy tears.

Now it's your turn.

What about you? Think an impossible thing and share it with me. Make it big. No point otherwise :)

And if you regularly make a habit of printing letters from magic computers, painting with tasty colors or kissing fish, then share that too.

I fed my house guests bark and leaves

"I was a little Girl

alone in my little world

who dreamed of a little home for me

I play pretend between the trees

and fed my house guests bark and leaves

and laughed in my pretty bed of green."

~ Priscilla Ahn

I didn't write that poem, but I know that little girl. She was me. I played in a garden beside our house just far enough away from the yelling and screaming.

And in that garden, with encouragement from the weeds, stray dandelions and sea breeze, I learnt to imagine things bigger than myself. Dreams.

I learnt to imagine dreams.

The only time I play in gardens now is with my little boys, but I haven't forgotten the imagining.

Sometimes if I get stuck for words, stuck in my writing or stuck in my living I remember that little girl.

She didn't need anything more than bark and leaves to dream. 

What about you? Where did you learn to dream and how do you get back to that place if you need to?

The World is Yours.

STORYTIME: Travel with me to Imagination

There were once two girlfriends travelling together in a time before they had children. They were deliciously irresponsible, fliting around the world, two caravan-gypsies, sitting on this plane and that train. 

Today their train was going nowhere. Oh, they bought tickets to somewhere, but Singapore with its efficient-no gum on the pavements-tie your laces-mind your manners country somehow managed to have a train that was not running on schedule. Their train sat obstinately idle between two stations, rebelling from its clipped timetabled surroundings. Or waiting for another train to pass or a change of signal. Or perhaps it was waiting for the will to continue down the track.

Whatever.

The girls were not bothered. The destination was never the point anyway. They simply liked movement. And they had both been the Singapore zoo before.

So, there they sat, drinking in scenes outside the graffiti-free windows, shoving each other playfully and saying things like, "Wouldn't it be great if you could get a seat like this on the trains in Hong Kong?"

They both worked there slaving away behind bars... actually, that's not true. They both worked in Hong Kong loving most minutes of teaching at an international school. But carrying on a love/hate type affair with this city of people, people and more people. The city that never found cause to sleep or even bow its head in rest unless of course, you counted the napping-Chinese lucky enough to be sitting down on some form of public transport.

"If I were a queen we would both always get seats on the train," said the first girl.

"If you were queen?" The second girl laughed.

"Okay then, you can be a queen too. What would you do if the world was yours?"

"I am a queen and the whole world is mine?"

"Yep, the whole world." The first girl stretched her arms wide.

"Do I have to keep Hong Kong on the planet?" the second girl asked.

They both laughed at that one because without their city of taxis and dripping air conditioning systems they would never have found each other. And besides, deep down they loved Hong Kong.

"Seriously. What would you do if the world was yours?" the first girl asked again.

The train started moving sometime after. It must have. But neither of the girls noticed the clean streets going by. They were too busy re-planning the world. 

Whole systems of politics and organizations with steel teeth and large appetites were being destroyed. The starving were fed and the homeless were housed. Because naturally, the Hurting and Hopeless were top priority.

The two young queens dreamed in animated conversation. Lengthy dreams that would turn presidents grey with the weight of their expectations. 

Simple dreams where grass grew right down the middle of tree-lined streets and every man held the door open for every lady. If she wanted them too, of course. A world where roses in vases where mandatory and queuing in lines was completely banned.

And lastly, before they stepped off that Singapore train, they turned to each other and said, "We would always get a seat on the trains in Hong Kong."

They were queens after all.

What about you? Do you remember a time when you dreamed that the whole world was yours? Do you need to dream again?

BTW- True story. Ode to my girlfriend Michelle and all her fantastical questions :) Remember when we dreamed the world was ours?

[image]

Story Flesh

Story flesh you live inside me. In all the things that make me smile.

Tea cups in the rain. Cupcakes behind the baker's glass. Goldfish circling, orange and black. Colored bottles on an open window sill. New pencils in their packets like a neatly boxed rainbows.

Little things that mean nothing.

This is where the story sparks.

In moments too small to even capture, that's where my writing grows.

Story flesh you aren't destroyed, even inside my Green House of Grief. Pain, a hot bed of healing.

The feet that once stamped in puddles without gumboots, the back flip that didn't land well and the eyes with blueness dripping, became the dew on my early morning grass. I lived under the sadness, but emerged with words. Fern fronds. Life. Even under the rocks carpeted with moss.

Story Flesh, apart of who I am. Even when I didn't know her. Even in the tears. Alive, over, under and beside me. Nice to finally see. The Story flesh; I always hoped I had.

A second skin, a first skin.

My skin.

Me.

What about you? What grows on you and in you? Do you have Story Flesh?

[image courtesy]

What If?

Imagination came by the house when I was just a little girl and asked a lot of questions.

What if....

fish were leaves?

clouds could be eaten?

you could talk to mice?

every rock was a diamond?

hair was really worms?

fairies swam in the ponds?

I giggled. I laughed. And together we played for hours.

Then Imagination turned on me and for a while we were not friends.

What if...

the iron is on and the doors are unlocked?

darkness really is dangerous?

the baby never sleeps?

I fail?

I succeed?

One foot slips?

I climb?

I fall?

I am not ever the person I want to be?

The boys get hurt?

My husband leaves?

We all get lost?

And no one finds us?

Later still I understood...

What if...

my wondering was not a jail cell?

imaging opens doors?

What if...

too little is not enough?

my own needs are not selfish?

pain holds answers to what is wrong?

feelings don't need a justification, just the right to be felt?

tenderness opens my world to embrace joy and suffering?

amazing lives inside us all?

my writing is one day read?

...and asking what if adds to the depth of those words?

What ifs are guides, not gods. They are the freedom to think outside possibilities, they are not the possibilities themselves. They are neither friend nor foe, and ask nothing more than to be acknowledged occasionally or birthed in due season. What ifs are not the boxes we build to put things inside, they are the keys to locks on lids. The only thing that makes What ifs dangerous are the answers we give in fear.

Without What ifs there would be no imagination. There would be no story tellers and there would be no stories to tell.

Have you met a What if lately? What did it ask and what did you say?

So Over The REAL World

EVER FELT THIS WAY?

This is what The Real World showed up with today:

Toddler meltdowns: 5

Six-year-old dramatic fits: total 989346

Shopping trip to hell with Nan to witness: 1

Loads of dry washing wet in afternoon rain shower: 2

Dog poop clean ups: 3

Moments I questioned my sanity and desire to be a mother: 90394203847923 (a conservative estimate)

Hours of writing completed: 0

What's Really Going on Out There in the Cosmos.

(no, that's not a question, I'm a gonna tell ya :)

Is it going home soon? The Real World? Because there are days when I am so over reality. Like today. Like right now. The Real World is my dinner guest that fell asleep on my sofa with wine glass in hand, then woke up with a hang over and refused to go home.

If The Real World was my husband, then today I just filed for divorce.

BUT THEN... I found a couple places to ditch The Real World for awhile. Cause you were wondering right. Your glad you're reading this aren't you. Your wondering how long I am planning on being absent from The Real World. I know. I can hear you :) But I don't care. Did you see what The Real World showed up with today? Sometimes I like being absent.

I don't want to completely abandon The Real World. But today I should have got up, said my good mornings and then escorted him to Pluto so I could go back to bed.

Pluto's a nice enough planet. As planets go.

Cold.

But then he is a gazillion light years away from the sun. And he has nothing better to do then just spin out there. All alone. And Pluto has feelings you know, (you knew that right), it's tough being the last planet in the known system of things that spin around our sun. So it stands to reason that Pluto might really like the company of The Real World.

Or maybe The Real World could take a spin with Saturn? Now there a planet with something original going on. Rings. Niiice. He's the only dude doing the 'ring thing' and all the other planets are jealous. So Saturn has no friends. A bit of a loser really. So Saturn might like The Real World too.

Or Jupiter? Who visits Jupiter? Sure, we spend millions flying astronauts to the moon, but what about the planet who has nine of them? Too far away? Too gassy we say. Well, we all have our faults. I think The Real World could over look these faults, since he has more than his fair share of crappy days following along behind.

Jupiter would love some adult conversation. Trust me. I know these things. Cause all she has for company are those nine little moons and dang it if she isn't over having to be the gravitational pull for all nine of them! The Real World would be very welcome. Especially if he brought coffee and a packet of choc chip cookies and some gorgeous new shoes he just picked up for her. Mmmm girl! Juptier was a woman in another life (I know that too- the moons give it away), and I tell you, if she isn't happiest drinking a Star Bucks and munching on sugar and chocolate while chin wagging over shoes and shopping adventures! The Real World could hang out there all day I expect.

Venus is a hot head, so I wouldn't send The Real World over there. He'd never cope and then I'd have to hear all about it when I was finally forced to rejoin The Real World.

I guess it's not The Real World's fault that sometimes I hate him. All things real and dramatic have to have somewhere to hang out now don't they.

I just need a break every now and then. Like all good relationships, space is important. The problem is that no one told The Real World. He just shows up every morning, right on cue with the alarm clock, and won't leave until I fall asleep that night.

Enter imagination. Thank God for imaginations. There is no need to let The Real World invade that space. That's my escape. Maybe that's why I write? To process The Real World and dream about what could be. Thank God for dreaming too. It's the ultimate holiday for all us mere mortals bound by the constraints of time and reality. Bound by The Real World.

Even if you don't write, imaginations are wonderful things to cultivate. And The Real World does have other friends to hang out with. Even just for an hour.

Okay, I've had my fun.

The Real World and I have made our peace. He had better show up with choc chip cookies tomorrow though.

What's your relationship with The Real World like? And where does it go when you write?

Can it get to your imagination?