Arms of Apollo: A Source of Inspiration

 

There will come a day – one day – you’ll discover something that wakes the snoozing inspiration inside you. You’ll find yourself creating, not just to create, but because if you don’t do it, it will feel like a betrayal to inspiration, to yourself and to them all at once.

It could be anything.
Anyone.

And it was music.

Behind the music there was the person.

But somehow, the person was the music.

It seemed like neither could exist without the other, for without the person, music would not sound, but without the music, the person would not be known. Not to me.
A chain reaction, really.

Without music, without the person, there would be less of what I too have made.

Creation.

To have a soul is to create, and sometimes – one day – you’ll find a soul that breathes beauty into sound. That breathes life into your art.

It was one spring day that I opened Spotify and searched up their name. The soul, the music, the person. People.

It has never just been one person. It was all of them, one not more than the other, equal in their presence to inspire.

A cluster of Muses.

Five souls I’ve yet to know.

How ‘little’ it takes to spark inspiration – I create but seldom share said creations with the source from which they came. I’ve painted portraits only to keep them safe in my room, never shown, never seeing the world outside. That way, they cannot be judged, and that way, they cannot be seen as anything but the way I see them.

But inspiration forms in its dances circles.

So, it seems I share my thoughts, describe the pictures in my mind – of red flashing lights, letters of black and gold, strings and microphones.

I remember exactly where I was. The bag I had with me, which notebook lay there on the café’s little tabletop, who I was talking to, who were my friends and who I’ve yet to meet. Spring of Twenty-five.
Curiosity.

It leads you where you need to be.

I knew of the band already for weeks by then, perhaps even months, but I always told myself, the first time I would listen to the music made will be in person, not through a recording – I wasn’t sure why, but even the thought of listening felt monumental, before I ever even listened. But I couldn’t wait.

Curiosity leads you where you need to be.

The very day I let myself listen for the first time, The debut song immediately found itself onto my automatically made “On Repeat” playlist, and I, at that time, found myself a little offended, because I never thought a new discovery would have meaning the day it was discovered.
How could it?
Barely three songs in and already, something was waking up.

They call it inspiration.

The genuine beauty of souls that create.

By July I was making new things; things I’ve never made before. Keychains, beads in the shape of a guitar – and for some reason I felt, for the first time in a while, the need to share. Give back a bit of what I get.

To show, although quietly, the chain reaction that is called inspiration.

It may not seem so, but I prefer to be on the verge of unknown – I will share pictures of the way I see the world, the beauty hidden in dirty old buildings and the shine of rain on cobblestones on winter nights not cold enough for snow.
Maybe, a picture of the way I did my hair that day.

Low stakes.

But feelings.

Those were scary – maybe still are – but nothing is quite as scary as being inspired by someone and never letting them know that what they’re doing has an impact, on at least just your soul.

And nothing is as fun as creating something because other very real human beings created something first.

That’s just how it goes.

Inspiration forms in its dances circles.