As it turns out, I’m an emotional writer. I can’t conjure this sort of caring. I need to be fatigued by fascination, exhausted by exasperation, high on happiness. Something. Anything. I write, words flow, when I’m all churned up inside. This is both a great curse and fabulous blessing. It has made it rather easy to recreate the experiences that have most inspired me for other to taste. But it also makes it impossible to fake. I could never be a writer. I’d have a hell of a time on an assignment. You can’t just flip a switch that way, it needs to just happen. Organically. And then it’s hard to shut off. It needs good light, great music, and sacred solitude. Then magic happens. Not for anyone else necessarily, I’m not convinced that what I create is worth anything to anyone else. And that’s fine. But in those fleeting moments, magic happens for me and I can put on paper exactly what’s happening inside. And that is AWESOME.

It doesn’t have to take much. Not always. Sometimes just a good sibling feud will do. A perfect pair of boots. Some sort of every day beauty that I fall effortlessly in love with. A look from a lover. Good company. A stunning sunrise over the back bowls. A quiet house before the troops have risen.

Other times, the inspiration is harder to come by. I get all dried up. Confused. Some sort of verbal constipation sets in and I go on a hiatus from the writing. When that happens, I never know what it’s going to take to snap out of it. There is no predicting, no tempting, no forcing. The mood just has to settle in. And the music usually needs to be turned up and the white noise of a full household turned down. When all of these stars align, it is apparently written all over my face. People tiptoe. Space is suddenly respected. I’m given all the time in the world. Nobody wants to rock that cradle.

Thank god.

Because sometimes that cradle is really hard to make. There is one sure thing that gets me every time, though: good travel. If I can just get my place somewhere else. And I mean way far away. A long plane flight at best. Somewhere that I can’t understand the language and the noise of a place distills down to rhythmical music in my background. That’s a sure thing.

So can we do that soon? Can we get out of here? Over there? Back to a place we’ve never been? I need a fix….