Waiting to (In)spire

The reason why I'm badly inconsistent with my blogging is because I'm always waiting for Inspiration to hit me.

Quite literally, if it came flying through the window, bonked me on the head and cheeped loudly "WRITE NOW! WRITE AS THOUGH YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!!", it would happen more often. I hate bosses, but they do have their ability - ie, to make you want to do something, and then hide their remains.

There are numbers of really rubbish films on LOVEFILM (Britain's version of Netflix), countless dishes and the drying laundry starting reproachfully at me, all testament to the fact that procrastination is just hope spelled out really long - the hope that some day, you will just do those things that are on the Important list without having a days-long argument with some voice at the back of your head giving you good reasons why it shouldn't be done Now.

Only problem is, I feel really INSPIRED when I buy birthday cards, think of cute clever things to say, and as soon as I enter the door to the current domicile, they all flee like roaches in the light. And I'm left sitting stupidly on the doorstep, wishing I would have written down this lovely wisdom in the shop, purchased postage, and jammed them in the postbox before my brain tried to convince me to Wait Til You Get Home to write it all down. When you can relax, put your feet up, and....promptly forget all that wisdom.

I feel similarly inspired, and you might too, when watching a coloured snail slide along the sidewalk near a wall - a snail with amazing reds and browns in swirly patterns, looking like the crusted rich loam out of a deep green wood somewhere, where small elves lurk and water droplets dance. I feel monumentally inspired when beholding a castle - centuries of stone glimmering in the sun after being newly washed in rain, hearty testament to generations of flighty human beings and their transitory lives. I feel incredibly inspired whilst shopping in Glasgow, with red and black and blonde waves of heads swimming their way toward the traffic lights, for and against me, and I swim strongly against their current interests. And I feel horridly daunted when I see a 5-cent piece glittering on the ground as I flash by on my cycle (Amsterdam story) and I can't grab it because my tour group is moving on.

That's what life does - it presents these lovely gifts, sometimes allows you to dabble in them and taste them, or roll around on them like warm grass in the sun, and sometimes whisks them away. Perhaps, even if you don't get those magic words down on the paper as you can, when you can, these moments are still worthwhile.