As if there wasn't enough to get done as a mama, what with diaper changes, feedings, play time, reading time, napping, grocery shopping, doctor's visits, and the calming of temper tantrums, somewhere in the midst of all that you have to find a moment for
INSPIRATION.
When are you supposed to find inspiration when you have the cacophony of young screaming voices reverberating through your head? When are you supposed to find time to clear your mind, go to a quiet, peaceful place in your home or outside in order to go through your process in which you find inspiration when you can't even find two minutes to yourself to relieve your bladder or, heavens to Betsy, brush your teeth? While the kids are napping? Ha! How often do the planets align and all of your kids are napping at the same time? And in those rare days where they are napping at the same time, what crazy person wouldn't take the opportunity to catch some snoozes themselves?
So when are you supposed to find your inspiration for the photo shoot that you meticulously planned with your spouse for that has to happen this weekend because it's your weekend and it has to happen or you won't have anything to work on for another two weeks?
I've come to the realization that I can't plan my moments of inspiration anymore. I can't just sit an contemplate this, that and the other. My current life doesn't allow for that. I have to take the moments whenever I can. Sometimes it's while I'm driving in the car with one child begging for juice and the other screaming her head off because her binks fell out of her mouth. Sometimes it's while I'm pacing the floor trying to get my littlest back to sleep and I ponder over the things that happened that day. I've learned I've got to take the littlest of moments and build on them in order to find my inspiration. It's very unlikely that I'll have a solid half an hour or more to just clear my mind and think. And so I have to take the thirty seconds from after waking, the minute at the bathroom, the fifteen minutes from rocking the baby, the five minute drive to the grocer and have a constant stream of inspiration that follows me throughout the day. It's a difficult process, but I find that I am becoming better at it the more I practice. What has me most surprised is not that this new system is working, but that my kids are actually giving me my inspirations. I draw on the feelings I have while being with them, whether good or bad, and those feelings give me concepts that I then flesh out and they become themes for future images.
Finding time for inspiration with children running around you is a difficult task, I am not going to lie. There is no sugar coating the fact that they take up all our energy and resources. But it is not impossible to still come up with brilliant ideas for your creations. It just takes a little more work than most, but is just as rewarding, if not more, when it happens.
What do you do to find your inspiration?