In Wuthering Heights country a few weeks ago, I walked miles in the pelting rain, my green wool scarf the color of the verdant fields wound tightly around my neck. I holed up a week in a romantic stone grange listening to the winds howl through the cracks of the recessed windows. I could write the song of those winds now and the stories that they hold.
I marvel at (or question) those who claim no influence from their surroundings, no relationship to their immediate territory, no rhythm to their creative surges, no environmental catalyst. I would respect such a contention if that insight held true. But do desert dwellers, tropical islanders, or those who live in polar-regions deprived of sunlight for months at a time not respond to different stimuli? Perhaps confined by a raging blizzard and icy driving conditions, you curl up by the fire and words form and cluster and migrate into elegant prose. Or does a balmy island breeze elicit the desire to express. Do dry hot Santa Ana winds irritate you, hurl you into a film noir mood, or spark your creativity?
Do you like to compose on the subway or in anonymous motel rooms, be enveloped by oak panels surrounded by shelves of wisdom, or sealed in a cubicle lit by fluorescent tubes? Do you choose a straight back chair of pine or a soft floral upholstered, a beat up kitchen table or one polished for elegant dining? Would you reach for pen or pencil, paints or charcoal, desktop or laptop, black or blue ink, film or tech memory, cast off metals, rare stones or fine threads? Do you need music, street sounds, the rhythm of tides, white noise, chitter chatter, or monastic silence to create?
Are you a morning person who would choose to draw at dawn or do lazy afternoons inspire you? Or are you like me – nocturnal – one whose muse comes out at night? Are they swaying palms you see or the red and ochre colors of autumn leaves? Is your place a hut of thatch or walls of stone – or both? Can you feel those freezing fingers, breathe the dampness of the jungle? Can you see the half-light of the empty room and the darkness of the cave? Can you suspend disbelief, crave the taste of vintage wine, glimpse the sunrise, slow the sunset?
You can invent, imagine, live vicariously, or re-create remembered moments – the sound of wind, the taste of mango, the scent of a lover. You could travel down the nearest road just around the corner, or like me, fly halfway round the globe to absorb exotic lands. It doesn’t matter. But if you identify the environment, the climate, the time of day or night you reach that unfettered zone of creativity (and discovery) with ease, then you can return again and again.
Perhaps the muse will appear when you are deep in thought, or not thinking of anything at all – sometimes the rhythm of walking or the sound of falling rain will summon her. Whether the world turns bright or remains as night, you can make it high noon or command the full moon? You can travel to that zone and listen to that song, have the courage to create and honor that demand. But you must search until you find…