Inspiration

By Frances Macaulay Forde

Sat, 19 Mar 2022
  • 333 reads
2 comments
 

Why do I now prefer writing in my bedroom when I have a perfectly good study - a space cleared for thought? I feel inspired to dream while I’m awake in here - not there.

Is it because I’ve just coated the room and everything in it a lilac pink?  Is that the colour of my inspiration?

Or does it illicit forgotten memories from my childhood? The baby-pink bedroom of my spoiled youth, the dear faces of my parents, still missed after so many years. I’ve been through so many colours since then.

But perhaps I need to visit them once again, in my imagination.

Maybe this shade is my mood-connection to the past. I’m alone now, responsible for the world I live in and my painted walls.

Or could it be something to do with the womb - a protective colour - a safe haven for my dreams. Help that I need in a harsh world, often too over-whelming for someone totally unprepared or never expecting to be the ‘Bottom Line’.

A softness, which evokes feelings and comfort, which allows my mind to wander and explore, knowing I’m enclosed and private, separated from others who see too much.

Or is it the large mirror with its elaborate edge reflecting my thoughts surrounded by soft, gentle, allowing colour?

I look at myself in the frame and from the ‘truth’ of distance - an inner ‘truth’?  Is that what empowers my exposure? Is distance enabling me to write such secret, forgotten feelings in my journal?

 

Frances Macaulay Forde © 2000

Certificate U
Story
Hidden Capacity ~ a poet's journey (Pub, Ireland 2003)
Journal
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

I liked this piece of writing because I agree that certain colours bring out the best in the imagination. For me it's peach. I painted the walls to the room I write in with this colour and have found it always inspires my imagination.

I'm sure your colours have inspired you in your gift of writing and hope it gives you many hours of future pleasure.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Frances Macaula... on

Thank you for your comment Jennifer.  This served as an introduction for my first book published in Ireland; "Hidden Capacity ~ a poet's journey".  It's made up of three sections, poems written after divorce and before study, then my 3 mature-age years at uni and finally exploring possibilities with the man I could have married 28 years before.

It's still true - even though now my walls are cream. That's why I find it easy to write to art - colours inspire. 

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/search?q=FrancesMF