Inspired

by Judy Schwartz Haley

It was a grey, blustery day, perfectly suited to my grey, blustery mood. I was dragging my cranky toddler and cantankerous husband through that most soul-suckingly dreadful chore: grocery shopping.

All the while I was complaining about the fatigue I’m still battling, and my ever growing list of things I STILL haven’t gotten done yet.

What happened to my inspiration, I wondered. What happened to that drive that kept me up all night, not because I had to do something, but because I was so passionate about that project that I couldn’t not work on it?

“You used to find inspiration everywhere,” my husband said – rather insensitively, I thought.

That comment pissed me off a little bit, mostly because he was right. (Is there anything quite so infuriating as a spouse who is right?)

I used to be able to look around wherever I was and find something, some little something, that lit something in me.

I looked around at the displays of produce. Those peppers are really orange. Look how the water beads up and sparkles on the broccoli.

It started coming back. Not the up all night because I’m so driven type of inspiration, but enough for me to come back to the store then next day with my camera.

Not a thing changed in that store to bring about that change in me, not the lighting, not the moods of my companions, just a little shift in what I was noticing.

Also: dinner tonight is rainbow chard, black beans, mushrooms, and quinoa. No recipe, I just felt inspired to put those things together. We’ll see how that turns out.