Where Do You Find Inspiration?

This was in one of our lobster traps the other day. So I snapped a quick shot of this cheerful little creature before I released him back into the ocean.

Back home, I found fabric left over from another project, cut out a quick template using newspaper, pinned it onto the fabric, and with a quick zip on the sewing matchine, a little stuffing, a button for his belly . . .

and ta-da! . . . an accent pillow

Here's an inspirational poem I found on-line

Poem: “Starfish”Eleanor Lerman, from Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds.

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman down beside you at the counter who says, Last night, the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder, is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the pond, where whole generations of biological processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds speak to you of the natural world: they whisper, they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old enough to appreciate the moment? Too old? There is movement beneath the water, but it may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the years you ran around, the years you developed a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon, owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have become. And then life lets you go home to think about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time. Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one who never had any conditions, the one who waited you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave, so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you were born at a good time. Because you were able to listen when people spoke to you. Because you stopped when you should have and started again. So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, with smiles on their starry faces as they head out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

– Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com