I can barely remember that season when words came easily. It seems like ancient history—those mornings when I couldn't start my day without scribbling some heart thoughts... those nights when I'd gladly stay up way-too-late to clothe my wandering wonderings in letters and words and paragraph breaks...
I like to think that season of willful writing was because of the context of my life. I only half joke that there wasn't anything else to do in Africa, so my free time was effortlessly spent blogging—and now I have restaurants and city streets and front porches to enjoy. But I know that's really only a fraction of it...
My life was also bursting with experiences imploring to be expressed, thoughts demanding to be declared, and heart stirrings begging to be shared. My gritty life in glorious Africa was so much larger than myself that I couldn't contain it if I tried. It pressed and prodded until it broke free. In inadequate syllables, it gave my heart wings to see and to say and to listen and to learn...
Inspiration doesn't seem as readily available anymore. I have to forcibly seek it out. Make time for it. Create space and even, more often than not, the desire for it. I have to shake the tree until inspiration falls like ripe apples to the ground, waiting only to be collected and enjoyed and shared.
But I'm realizing how much I crave it—both the inspiration and the writing—regardless of how much effort and exertion and force it requires. The free therapy of "thinking out loud" through written words might be just what my broken Icarus wings need...
And so, I write.
Even when it's only about my difficulty to find words...