My dear friend Professor Jeff knows this about me and has recently been lavishing mail based spoiling upon me. Every time I get a piece of mail from him I do a little happy dance out by the post box (which I'm sure amuses the neighbors) because his mailings are always sure to be something really good.
This bit mailing was no exception to the "something wonderful" rule but he may just have set a new high bar for all mail henceforth.
Inside a small, handmade (hooray!) cardboard envelope I found the bird's feather pictured above. Jeff wrote that he'd found it while on a hike in the mountains. This gave me so much joy, I can't even tell you.
I've spent several hours now looking at this feather and thinking about where it came from. I went back to look at some pictures Jeff had taken of his most recent hike in the breathtaking alpine scenery that surrounds Boulder, Colorado. I've held this feather in my hand and imagined what that scenery must've looked like where this feather was found - and what it might've sounded like. Was there the soft sound of water running nearby or the loud cries of crows calling to each other from high in the pine trees? Did it smell like pine there? Or a recent rain?
I've marvelled at how beautiful and elegant this feather is, imagining what sort of bird it came from and where he or she lived, what it ate and how this feather came to be lost.
I will be drawing the imaginary birds from whom this feather came for awhile and then I'll probably do some Google image searches in the hopes of finding out what bird this feather actually came from. Who knows what kinds of amazing things I'll find while I'm doing that? Native plants and animals of the Boulder region? The Red Feather lakes of Colorado? A crocodile was spotted in Boulder? Well, not actually, but that's the name of a link that I found just searching for "spotted feathers" and "Colorado."
Do you think the fact that there wasn't an actual crocodile in Boulder will stop me from imagining that there might be one? No way!
I don't know if most people go off on a many hours long journey provoked by a surprise bird's feather in the mail, but this is what happens to me.
It seems like anything that can pop me out of the realm of the ordinary is something that has the power to fire my imagination and that's the most powerful gateway to creativity I can access.
I get so busy that I often forget to stop and look up from what I'm doing to see the unexpected and potentially muse provoking worlds of inspiration and imagination that are all around me every day. I don't think that I'm all that atypical in that regard (if no other). There are errands to be run and tasks to be completed and checklists to be made and then checked off. I can run like that for awhile but eventually the creative well dries up and I find myself wandering around wondering "where has my muse has gone? Why can't I find any inspiration?"
But then someone mails me a feather, and I remember!
Speaking of which, I have birds to draw...
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