It’s June. Wow! It’s bustin’ out all over! Here in New England we are experiencing something unusual. Where I live we had a VERY mild winter and no snow. Okay, we had a few inches here and there, but in this part of the country, six inches does not a snowfall make. In fact, kids won’t even check for school cancellations when they look out the window and see less than a foot. As the winter months melted into spring, the rains came. Mother Nature, not wanting to leave us high and dry, literally, sent us days and days of the stuff. When the flora woke up from its long winter nap, it went wild. Even the most neglected lawn is green. The leaves on the trees behind my house are so thick you can’t see ten feet into the woods. The birds seem to be gossiping about the abundance of food, the fluffy things that come off the cottonwood trees are a blizzard and I’m pretty sure I saw a squirrel doing a happy dance.
New England is beautiful. All four seasons are beautiful. This spring is exceptionally beautiful. It is easy to be enthralled by the wild flowers sprouting on the sides of country roads. As you travel down a highway you see sweeping landscapes carved up into farm fields, pastures and wild meadows. When you go outside, the air smells of sweet clean rain.
In this environment it is very easy to be so engrossed in what’s around you that you forget to do your job. When your job is to be creative, it seems like a no-brainer that you find a place rife with inspirational elements. I am more creative when working by a cabin in the country, sitting in a lounge chair on the beach or sipping coffee at an alfresco table on a city street than I am in a corner of the library or a quiet office cubicle.
But I run the risk of being absorbed into the scene and getting nothing done. Believe me I am not complaining here. There are a lot of people sitting in cubicles who wish they had the problem of trying to concentrate while working poolside. But I’m wondering what everyone else does to let the juices flow. Leave a comment telling me what you do at work. Tell me about the environment you assemble for yourself. Quiet, TV or music? Solitary or in a group? Do you look at charts and graphs, a vacation brochure, maybe a lava lamp. Are you drinking tea or a diet cola?
I’d love to know what works for you so you can work.
