A cue from the trees

I read Jonas Ellison’s latest post this morning. It’s the second day running that I’ve read his blog. I suppose I can ride his coat tails and have his inspiration guide my posts, meaning I could play a responsive writing game where I read his posts and simply use them as starting points for mine, but that’s not helpful. To you or me.

But today, I will. To start.

Jonas shared a picture of his space where he gets in his zone asap and is able to get his writing done. And he asked his readers to share a picture of theirs.

I don’t have one. Here’s my writing studio for today:

Today is what seems the bajillionth consecutive day of rain in Metropolis. And the ten day forecast has indicated we have a bajillion more straight ahead.

I’m not sure if it’s scientifically proven that rain, or the gray skies that tend to accompany the rain, present a hurdle to feeling happy, but it’s been extra challenging for me lately.

I’m in the midst of a job search and have been for the most part fairly unsuccessful. And this can weigh on anyone. So when it’s gray outside, it becomes that much more difficult to have a positive outlook.

I tried to talk myself into being okay with the rain today using Hawaiian rules #1 and 10 —

Never judge a day by the weather, and No rain, no rainbows.

Both rules are most definitely true, but they weren’t quite working for me.

Fast forward to after school drop-off on my subway trip back uptown. I started writing today’s blog post and emerging from my funk. I realized when I’m in a good place with my writing habits, and delivering, I find a lot of internal happiness. My zone. Regardless of the physical location. (I’m not discounting that finding a place where I can get in my zone, my place, wouldn’t be helpful to my writing, and that ultimately I will find and have that place, I’m just suggesting that I was able to get it done today without it.)

But perspective dawned on me on the way to my volunteer gig. (More on the volunteer gig further down the road. I can’t use all my material at once.) It took some visual stimulation but I caught it that right angle.

It was still raining and crummy out. But I realized it’s all about how you look at things. So I took a cue from the trees today. They were so happy to have the rain. I took a video to document it. And check it out, you might suggest the little guy on the right is blowing in the wind, but I saw that he was extremely happy with the rainy weather and simply waving hello. (So was the big dude in the back.)

And yes, you can have some of what I was on. It’s called happy.