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Creativity … I think many people think of this word as being a quality that a person either has or doesn’t have. That attribute to the word is even built into the English language. *He* ***is*** *really creative.* Or, *I wish I* ***were*** *as creative as she* ***is.*** But so much of creativity comes from having a routine, having a space, and from putting in the effort. If a person seems to be really creative, it’s probably because that person works really hard at, or at least spends a lot of time creating things.
 
For the past three weeks, I was traveling abroad with my family, totally separated from my daily routine and from my creative spaces. Before traveling, I had wondered how this would affect my writing practice. Would all of the new sites and experiences inspire me? Would I be barraged by flashes of inspiration? Would writing these tiny poems become easier?
 
I really hoped so.
 
But that wasn’t the case at all.
 
Removed from everything but my daily deadline, I found myself feeling very stressed and unable to think of these poems the way I usually do. Being constantly surrounded by people and always on the move, there was no down time, no quiet time for me to just relax, let go, and assimilate things. There was no time to take a simple idea and rephrase it over and over again until it worked.
 
I managed to meet my daily deadlines for the three weeks that I was away, but often in the way that you have to meet deadlines, by just saying, *Well … time is up, and this is the best thing that I’ve got, so it will have to do.*
 
I’m not sure how I feel about the work that I produced while I was away, but I’m happy that I still managed to post one tiny poem a day and that I pushed myself to keep up with my goal of doing so.
 
Creativity is funny. It’s not something you can force, but at the same time, if all you do is wait for it to come to you, you might be waiting for a long, long time.
 
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<center>**(1)**</center>
 
<center>At the zoo today,
I was amazed by the size of
the people I saw.</center>
 
<center>**(2)**</center>
 
<center>did you imagine
the quilts you made in your teens
holding your grandchildren</center>
 
<center>**(3)**</center>
 
<center>two empty lawn chairs
sitting under large elm trees
how content they look</center>
 
<center>**(4)**</center>
 
<center>all our goodbyes said
the sky brightens as our plane
lifts into the sky</center>
 
<center>**(5)**</center>
 
<center>the lengths we go and
the distances we travel
to make our way home</center>
 
<center>**(6)**</center>
 
<center>after a long trip,
the window of time before
normalcy returns</center>
 
<center>**(7)**</center>
 
<center>in pre-dawn darkness
an avant-garde soundtrack
orchestral rain</center>
 
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<center>**As always, thanks for reading.**</center>
<center>*All feedback, thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, etc. are welcomed.*</center>