A Writer’s Life: Leaves of Inspiration
Inspiration is a funny thing. It rarely comes from where you would expect to find it. At least for me.
Somewhere back in 2004, I moved to Wisconsin from Virginia after the decimation of my second marriage. I wanted to be closer to home, but not too close, and the area around Madison seemed promising with its small tech boom and cute little towns. My parents were about 100 miles away, less than two hours. And I was near enough other family as well.
The first time I drove to my parent’s house from my new apartment, it was on a road I was not familiar with, US Highway 18. It was a pretty drive, being spring and all, and it reminded me of home. I kept a watch on my speedometer (Because I have to. I inherited a lead foot and if I am not using cruise control, I tend to exceed the speed limit), and enjoyed the scenery.
Outside a very small town, called Mount Hope, I saw her.
A tree, standing all by herself, very close to the road. As I whizzed past her, I smiled.
I kept thinking about that tree. And on my way home from my folks’ house, I stopped to take a picture of it. I could not identify then what it symbolized to me, but it meant something.
It looks like the kind of tree that – back in the day, before it was a US Highway, it was a small paved road, and people would stop and have a picnic there, out of the back of their car.
For the next several years, I would drive past that tree and smile, often taking a quick picture of it on my phone. I posted so many pictures of it on Facebook that people probably thought I had lost my mind.
But I had not. I had gained something. Smiles. And after my second failed marriage, I needed all of those that I could get.
When one night, lying awake in bed, unable to sleep, I started to formulate a story.
And the tree slid into that story so easily.
Many years later, I would find out that that I was not the only admirer of the tree. She even had her very own Facebook page, and a lot of other people who smiled as they drove past her, too. It made my heart glad that she had so many fans. She deserves every one of them.
The spot on her trunk that is without bark is from an accident, sometime in the fifties or sixties. She took it, and kept on going and growing, sprouting leaves and shedding them, and keeping her vigil over that road, and the people who drive past her and smile.
When my Avalon Project is finished, I will write that story. They are tied together, over a couple of centuries, you see. I see my Mount Hope Tree as a piece of the Tree of Life. (I also have great fondness for the imagery of the Tree of Life.)
When I go home now to see my parents, sometimes I will fly into Madison. And I will drive past my tree and smile. She inspires me to keep going, so that her story can be told. And it will be.
Inspiration is everywhere, and often in places we would not think to look for it. Beauty can be found in the simplest of things, even if they are not the generally conceived definition of beauty. Our lives are tied together with others, even if we have not met them.
Anything can inspire you to write.
What will inspire you today?
