The Writing Life

"Every morning you climb several flights of stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air. The desk and chair float thirty feet from the ground, between the crowns of maple trees. The furniture is in place; you go back for your thermos of coffee. Then, wincing, you step out again through the French doors and sit down on the chair and look over the desktop. You can see clear to the river from here in winter. You pour yourself a cup of coffee. Birds fly under your chair. In spring, when the leaves open in the maples' crowns, your view stops in the treetops just beyond the desk; yellow warblers hiss and whisper on the high twigs, and catch flies. Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair." 


{Annie Dillard from The Writing Life}

Before I left for Riga last week,

I got caught up in reading a short book called

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.

The poetic prose was wonderfully tempting

and inspirational

that I couldn't help but to jot down some notes

and take in the idea that perhaps one day I will write

in solitude near the sea or deep in forests

as Annie has done over the decades,

along the eastern sea shore and the western cliffs.

Spring has revitalized my ambitions

and my motivation.

With the sun out I am doing and creating and working and playing,

not hibernating in my warm room and fluffy bed as I've done all winter. 

It's time to go out and wonder at the world

and the people who inhabit it

and record my sightings and imaginings. 

*photos were found here, here, and here.

*My Latvian Easter will be up in the coming days.