A Fluttering of Wings

I was thinking about...I don't actually know. I got up, had my coffee, sent a few emails, then picked about online for a while, visiting a few blogs. The last blog I looked at was about writing/editing and a few words snagged my attention. Not in the way you usually think of that phrase--they were so striking I will remember them forever, or at least long enough to write them down.

Instead, they were words that immediately, almost before their meaning sank in, sparked something else.

But spark is the wrong word.

Have you ever watched something, or been having a conversation, and go, "That reminds me," then switch to a seemingly unrelated topic? The commercial, show, or conversation before that point actually -did- remind you of something, but not in a way that you could have clearly drawn the lines from one to the other?

The connection is hard to grasp, hard to perceive sometimes. Like an invisible bird, taking flight beside you. You can't see it, but you can hear the fluttering of its wings, feel the wind kicked up, react to the brush of a wing tip against your chek, but when you look, you don't know where from it came.

It's inspiration, or something akin to it. You can't predict it, you can't always trace it back to its origins, but it does something for you, something that leads you down a new path, throws a few breadcrumbs for you to find. That fluttering draws your eye, your attention, and you look at a place you didn't notice before.


(Photos are by Russ Hansen, Allison Trentelman, and wikipedia, respectively)