Lacking Inspiration

When I write, I try to do more than chronicle my days at home with the babies.

I try to do more than babble, although there is great comfort in babbling sometimes.

I try to touch people. I try to mean something, to connect.

It's hard to express the intricacies of the beauty or the pain or the ambition, or even the hope

that lies within my mind all the time - Especially on the heels of putting someone

in the corner for a timeout for the 17th time that day or

burning the meatloaf, or fighting about the bills.

I often run low on inspiration. Like, right now...

I fall short of being that highly intuitive 10th grader, so charged with passion,

who could sit down and easily fill pages upon pages of a blank notebook in one sitting.

It's hard not to keep writing about the same things over and over again, only disguised
with new adjectives so as not to seem boring to my readers...

In times like these, one would think, "Just don't write."

Plain and simple.

Except when there's so much sloshing around in my brain that I can

barely even hear myself think, much less be focused on properly rearing my children...

Then I NEED to write. To put pen to paper, so to speak, and just let it all out.

Tonight, I was looking to be inspired myself. So that the creative juices might start to flow.
If one woman can do that for me, it would be her... Dr. Maya Angelou.
She has been a touchstone for me since my troubled teen years.

And as always, she didn't fail me.

"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are,
 what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and
 go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also
 trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound.
I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows
 us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of
 our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit.
Real wit is shown in language. We need language."

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems
 today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and
to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor,
and some style."

"Do the best you can until you know better.
Then when you know better, do better. "

"The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them."

"Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant."

"Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got.

Love it with a passion because life truly does give

back, many times over, what you put into it."

and my favorite of all...

"I am a Woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal Woman,

that's me."

~ Maya Angelou

___________________________________________

Can you hear the rattle and banging of those pipes as the creative juices make their

way through the maze and start to trickle again?

I'll get there... it may take me some time and it may not be when I want it to be, but I'll get there.

I haven't been living my best life and I deserve to. My babies deserve it too...

I'm givin' it my best shot.