raininjanuary

It’s a funny thing, sleep.  At times, it is such a welcomed reward at the end of a full day, at others an aloof lover you can’t quite get to come to you.  Tonight, I am playing the cat and mouse game with it.  Since getting back to Paris after a calm but surreal trip back to the states for the holidays, I have been in a strange battle with sleep and losing miserably.  I tend to struggle with jet leg when I get back here but I am going on my third week and can’t quite justify it with circadian rhythms.  Each evening I anxiously eyeball my clock as night comes and wonder if tonight will be the night I can cuddle into bed with my book at a decent hour and fade off.  Reading will generally do the trick.  Get a book in my hand in bed and I am nodding off in no time.  Now I just keep reading, and nothing good at that.  I tried counting sheep, literally mind you.  Gave up after 600.

The original goal of this blog was to document the slow awakening of my life.  Lofty goal.  Since that time I have enrolled myself in a photography school and delved into the world of arts education.  I chose photography because it fell in line with my desire to capture the details that often go unseen.  All I feel I am sitting with now is a lost eye.  By structuring this desire, I have lost it.  Not for good, but I can’t get at it.

I was told today that I am a person who must be inspired to be productive.  I don’t disagree with that but how does one define their inspiration?  What is my muse?  What was it about behavioral genetics in college that not only captured my attention but fostered a great desire to excel in it?  Or watching the flow of service in a restaurant?  Who really pays attention to where the server keeps the menus and how many tables they touch before communicating orders with the kitchen or bar?  Is there one common thread in what people find inspiring?  A friend looks to 3 people for inspiration.  Just calls them up and asks for an idea or has a conversation and BAM, she on.  I get jazzed by cheese, bad music, and inappropriately analyzing people.  Where is the connection there?

At this point, I am tempted just to ask random people to give me projects.  Take a photo of this, write about that, spend an afternoon here.  If I can’t find it for myself, maybe someone else’s vision can open my eyes.