Oh, the sweet bliss of this combination. Oh, the many times this combination has inspired me to a point where nothing else can. Oh, the peace it brings and oh, the thoughts it inspires. So here is a bit of an ode to my perfect collaboration of inspiration.

So many pieces which have been inspired by rain. The trickling on the pavement, the smell of creosote, the soothing white noise it brings. That hue it brings upon everything outside, if only for a little bit. When everything is sort of dampened after a rainfall and the birds are chirping, letting everyone know that they have come out from hiding. Such peace and such serenity only clouds and moisture bring upon me. I lay in bed or I stare out of the window and everything feels calm. Silent. Still. Everything feels right, for that moment. Maybe it’s strange of me to receive such happiness by what so many people label as “gloomy” and “ugly.” But then…maybe it’s not. Because if I can believe what is gloomy to be invigorating, that says something. About me. And about how I believe the world should see.

Countless times I’ve relied on coffee. The sweet and poignant taste has been so familiar for years. I still remember my first memories of coffee. I was small. No more than six, I’m sure. “Leave a little milk for Dad’s coffee in the morning,” my mom would say. “Can you bring me my coffee with as much milk and sugar as I showed you?” My dad would ask. So I would. I would pour in the little bit of milk he wanted, add as many spoonfuls of sugar he would request, and start walking to the backyard with this steaming cup in my hands. But before I got there, I would sneak a sip. And when I got there, Dad would tell me to sneak another sip. And this became more and more frequent until he started introducing me to cappuccinos and mochas and lattes, and I would taste the difference among each, and I would sip from Styrofoam cups he filled with various flavors in gas stations and road stops. And then came the day where I got to graduate from sips and get my own coffee. “She shouldn’t have that,” a family friend would say. “It’ll stunt her growth.” But I kept drinking and I kept growing and that’s when I realized that nothing is wrong about coffee.

And now…nothing is wrong with coffee. I chug it in frenzies to get out of the door in time, I order it at overpriced expenses when I can hardly carry myself around campus anymore, I routinely make it every night so it’s ready for me in the morning because I know that something just won’t feel right the next day without it. But my favorite way to drink coffee? Times like right now. When I don’t have to rush, when I don’t have to spend too much, when it isn’t a routine. Days like today when I know I don’t have any immediate priorities and I can just sit here and steal sips from this coffee.

And I can sit here and appreciate the combination of the hue and dampness outside with my sips; and in the air among my raincloud-lit room, I smell a sweet scent mingling with the scent of the open window. What exact scent it is, I can’t remember. Numerous sticks of incense have found a home beside my stereo and right next to my Libra-themed incense holder. I pick one out and I smell it to see if it’s an appropriate smell for the occasion; which, all the time, absolutely, no doubt, is yes. I light it and the tip glows red and a stream of smoke trails off the end and dances in beautiful ribbon formations. Touched slightly by the outside air, and the trail escapes to the side or detaches itself from the tip completely. In the incense holder, the ribbons mingle and dance and turn and tie and they bring a scent of serenity to my entire room.

Lavender, rose, juniper, nutmeg, sandalwood, cedar, amber or musk, I don’t know which it is. My olfactory senses aren’t intelligent enough to distinguish between different scents of what smells so natural. All I know is that I grabbed any stick that smelt pleasant to me that one exploratory day at the head shop, and I bought them. All I know is that this just smells so right. So natural. So fresh. It reminds me of rain and head shops filled with knick-knacks and serene days as an adult and serene days back at home when my mom lit incense to take away other unpleasant smells. It smells right. And it smells like peace.

It’s like rain and coffee and incense are three separate bunches of flowers. So nice and beautiful. So much like a gift that is waiting to be given to someone held so dearly. But what’s missing is the ribbon to tie these flowers into a bouquet. And for me, writing is the ribbon. Writing makes everything work. Writing makes sense. A day without writing is a day without creativity is just not a day. There have been so many times where I’m just overcome by such a deep and overwhelming sense of creativity, that writing needed to happen right then at that moment, or I was going to mentally explode. Times when I was shaking as I held the pen and my heart was pounding and my pupils dilated as the pen scratched furiously among the pages. Times when I was filled with overwhelming joy, overwhelming love, overwhelming appreciation of natural beauty, and of course, times when I was filled with overwhelming sadness. When it felt like the world was falling apart slowly. When I felt like I had no grasp on anything anymore. When I felt like everything that I had believed in to bring my happiness had removed some sort of mask to reveal to me that they weren’t what I thought they were. I needed something to hold on to, and writing was my anchor. Such wonderful emotions have been put into what I’ve written. The outcomes are always so beautiful to me, whether they are wonderful literary works or word vomit. Either way, I wrote. Either way, emotions were put into words. And that’s really all I wanted to accomplish.

These four things inspire me to a level that nothing else really can. Of course, everything inspires me. Life in general, death in general, everything in this world, everything outside of this world. People (sometimes, very certain people), plants, herbs, songs, music. Anger, love, hate and serenity. Everything is an inspiration. But I feel like all of these inspirations change over time. The people you dwell upon so much that are so constantly transformed into your writing can one day not be there and can one day not bring you the emotions they do now. The songs that fill you with such joy and inspiration will stop playing. The emotions that fuel your writing will change. Don’t get me wrong, all of these are beautiful and perfect sources of inspiration. All of these deserve so much to be praised if they inspire any source of creativity at all. But for me, these first four inspirations are everlasting. As long as I’m on this earth, the sun will always shine, which indirectly means the rain will always fall. Coffee beans will continue growing while the sun continues shining and the rain continues falling. While the coffee beans grow, so will the fruits and the woods and the leaves and the flowers that this incense is derived from.

And while the sun keeps shining and the rain keeps falling on the coffee and the fruits and the woods and the leaves and the flowers, I will keep writing.

I will always keep writing.