Where Do You Find Your Inspiration?
Ευπρόσδεκτη; welcome, welcomed, appreciated, palatable
“Where do you find your inspiration?”
He was from Greece, he said, here on a business trip with his sister. He had kind eyes, an eagerness, maybe even a naivety about him. Focused, willing, and welcoming.
We were sitting there, shoulder to shoulder nestled in a crowded cafe on Newbury Street. It was almost Christmastime, not quite yet though. The evening sun slowly fading from the windows, causing the dust in the air to come alive, dancing in the hue of the golden rays. He told me I had rainbow eyes.
He gestured to my worn, leather notebook and my notes scattered and nonsensical, loose pieces of paper strewn about my little square table.
At first, I was caught off guard. Could he not tell by my pained and focused disposition that I was engaged in the very busy and important work of breaking my own heart with words? Otherwise known as; poetry. Funny, how artists are often surprised by others wanting to connect when we practically sweat vulnerability.
For us, the writers and the thinkers and the artists and pained poets of the like, we exist in the space between reality and romanticism and dissociation. The whole world is in fact, a stage; a show, a living, breathing work of art orchestrated by emotion and turmoil. Each human interaction, body language presented, words uttered; muses for our work.
All of the commotion is deceptively inspiring. The constant averse introvert taking an observational stance, often obscures the desire or ability to connect physically, which causes a perpetual void of emotion. This then, is recycled and poured into the black hole in the form of the page onto which a poet bleeds.
Noise surrounding is a symphony of stories ranging from elation to catastrophe, words standing out in explosions of colors and collision. Alluring are the linguistics in the acoustics that float in the air, waiting to be grasped by a curious mind.
These words from tongues of stranger float onto lips of lyricists and through veins to the insides of fingertips where they escape onto a pen and into a page. So maybe, poets are thieves and the victims are you, and you, unknowing and perhaps unwilling.
We cannot help it.
Where do I find inspiration? I smiled at this sweet man and asked,
“Sir, what word would you use to describe your favorite feeling?”
He took my pen from my little square table and wrote out, “Ευπρόσδεκτη.”
“It means welcoming, like the feeling. But you haven’t answered my question.”
I packed up my things, and bid him farewell without offering another word.
Inspiration comes after we leave. We always leave after a robbery.
