Happy Spring Writers and those who love them... I recently received a request from a dear student for some travel prompts. Little did I know her request would turn into a prompt! Hence what we all know to be true: everything is a prompt! Happy travels!
There are so many prompts that I can only imagine will show up every moment of your travels; if you stay open to prompts, you will see them everywhere. Notice what energizes you/charges you--for better or worse and all in between--and there you have a loaded prompt. Is it pinwheels? Elevators? Hotel rooms? Hotel lounges or pools? Is is the lone person? The happy couple on their honeymoon? Is it a know-it-all-therapist? Is it jealousy or joy? Cocktail hour? Feeling left out? Feeling acceptance? The jacuzzi? The memories of being here before? The sensory array of blooming things? THe not blooming things? Can a face bloom or not bloom? Notice what's happening inside and write from there and you cannot go wrong.
Sit. Check in. Look around. Check in. Write. Oh, and what about "checking in"? That there is a great prompt. Especially in therapy-land. Many stories there.
Ditto walking.
Ditto sitting in a conference hall.
Ditto the carpeting in the hotel conference hall. Oh, the memories and infinite possibilities that live in hotel carpeting.
Which has so many shades and patterns and colors, and really, can take you to drapes, which have many stories you've forgotten you've forgotten, and of course, windows and views outside of windows and.... do you prefer your shades up or down? Is your favorite color blue or red or both? And what are your memories of that color and associations with it? And what if you just write for an hour about lemon yellow? Or lemons? Or table cloth white? Or table cloths? You've got to just trust that when you give it space and time, something magic will show up and have lots to say. Will move through you and thank you dearly. For that matter, you could write about gratitude. Or grumpiness. Yours. Hers. Theirs. The righteousness you feel when it's some unenlightened else's.
What you hear at the pool. Or smell. What does chlorine do to you?
And of course the food. What you love. Fear. Won't eat. Can't eat. How you judge what others eat. How you hold back. How you count calories or splurge or compile recipes or tell yourself "well, I'm on vacation..." and what about all that? Or maybe you have a daquiri which you haven't had since you were 21? Or whipped cream? Or try eel sushi? Or skip a meal and write about your hunger. Hunger moves words in a myriad of acrobatic and architectural ways.
And of course... it goes without saying... what you're learning and how it moves you because most of all I think it's good and energizing to attune to what moves you, what works that incredibly receptive life giving muscle to tears, laughter, to happiness, to release, to insight, to friendship, to new beginnings, and possibly new endings...
and before I say 'write about beginnings or endings' or meetings of all kinds or reunions, I'd better quit now before this gets completely out of hand, but for now, I'll just say "thank YOU for the prompt."
Have a ball! (oh gosh... and who doesn't have ball stories? My first ball was a soccer ball...)
Bon Voyage!
Rox
