Forms of Inspiration
We took a trip to Ka’anapali this summer, and when I returned a friend said to me, ‘Well, it must have been relaxing – you wouldn’t have to see any “sites” there’. The assumption, I suppose, being that because it was Hawaii, because it involved a beach and sea and sunshine, and perhaps because it was the States, there was no culture or history there. This surprised me, and got me thinking.
I find travel to be a boundless source of inspiration. I’ve published a collection of travel poems, and most of my fiction owes, in some part, its inspiration to travel. I’m not entirely sure why this is, why I am more comfortable writing about the view down a dormant volcano than the view from my kitchen window [where, sadly, the geraniums are coming to an end]. Perhaps it’s the surprise of a new place, a new culture, being bumped up against something surprising. Each place I visit leaves some sort of fingerprint on me, smudged and sticky, regardless of its locale. Tropical, dusty, rainy – it makes no difference to me.
When we were in Nuevo Vallarta last year, I didn’t write about the sea, or about the way the palms lined the walk, but about the Feast of Guadalupe, and the way the streets bulged with white. And this time, coming home from Maui, I had a poem about a missionary’s wife and the gift of a commode tucked in my pocket.