Who or what inspires you? Fascinates you? Makes you want to createcreatecreate until you fall asleep in a pile of fabric scraps or seed beads or bobbins?

As spring hits, it’s hard not to be inspired, but what if all those budding flowers leave you listless and blank?

Lately I’ve been returning to some of my old standbys for when I’m feeling less than artistic, in case you’re feeling blue, here are a few recommendations:

1. Take a walk with your camera. Don’t take any photos of anything bigger than, say, your fist. Zoom in on tiny things. Kneel down to change your perspective. Look at all those things you don’t normally see. Alternatively, take pictures of only one thing along your walk (the ground, birds, roadkill, trash).

2. Listen to instrumental music. Normally I listen to music with words, and this forces me to hear the difference between the notes and pay attention to the types of instruments being played. Instead of focusing on the lyrics, my mind wanders with the notes. (I especially recommend Sigur Ros.)

3. If you’re stuck inside by a computer, go to Technorati and search for topics that you want to know more about. You’re likely to find someone who thinks a lot like you and who can challenge you to view your favorite subjects in a new light.

4. Just because you’re inside doesn’t mean you can’t plan where you want to go once you’re outside. (Lonely Planet makes me want to plan elaborate vacations I can’t afford, but also allows me to think outside of my own cultural identity.

5. Read the paper of an opposing political slant, depending on your political views. Sometimes I get so trapped in my little liberal bubble that I forget for a minute what I’m fighting for and/or working towards.

6. Focus on one of your senses. This was something I did a lot in grad school and an exercise that I love doing. It was amazing what new ideas I had for projects when I concentrated on the way the city smelled or felt or sounded. It opened countless narratives whenever I was feeling uncreative.

7. Sit still with your eyes closed. (Be careful, lying down tends to make you fall asleep!) Call it meditating. Call it thinking. Call it what you will. Just sit down for five minutes and clear your mind (I actually use the mantra “clear (inhale) mind (exhale)”). This is especially effective when your mind is everywhere but on your creativity. Listen to your breath and wipe the slate clean so you can make new things instead of worrying about old things.

One day I opened the door to a package delivery man who asked me during our brief conversation, “Are you a writer? An artist?” For a long time after he left, I wondered why he asked me that particular question, that question that I all too often ask myself.

In the end, I surmised that he probably asked because of either my style of dress or because I was home in the middle of the day. But that doesn’t answer my own internal question.

This time of year as the ground begins to thaw and the flowers begin to bud and people start to come out of their often self-imposed winter hibernation, I find that I tend to wonder where I’m going this new year. Forward? Backward? Or will this be a lateral year?

We’ll see.

This past month I’ve been posting less and reading less and hibernating, too. But as the weather begins to warm up and everything starts to turn green, I still find myself questioning what makes someone a writer or an artist besides creative production. And if during my dormant periods, I still can claim the title.

Do you ever give thought to the themes you keep returning to? And the whens and the whys? One of the greatest things about having digital photographs on my hard drive is that I can look at the thumbnails in groups and identify the themes that I latch onto- whether for a week or a lifetime.

It wasn’t until I was able to look at my photos together en masse that I was able to understand what my work is centrally about. While I grew up thinking that I had to focus on one vocation, like being a veterinarian or something, I didn’t entertain the thought that I could simultaneously deal with several different foci and still work under one (albeit slightly larger) umbrella.

In tracing back the steps of the past few years, I am able to see that I am working around themes of home, modernity, belonging, women’s experience, the ridiculous and the forgotten. Instead of barreling up one path and wearing it out, I instead find myself following several different paths simultaneously as they ebb and flow with the rhythm of my daily life.

In being able to truly look at the past few years digitally, I am able to start to understand that it’s not the path that you take that is important- it’s that you begin to take notice of the whys and the whens.

Linda’s picture from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Prospect Park last year perfectly captures the weather today in North Carolina.

I’m drinking coffee and wearing a hoodie and my bangs keep blowing into my eyes as children keep running past me on the co-op lawn. At a nearby table a student is doing her homework, spelling out the vocabulary words, ‘L-O-O-N spells loon,’ to the tutor sitting with her. Even though it is the last day of February, spring has sprung momentarily.

Despite the warming temperatures, I am determined to finish knitting the 36 squares which will comprise my blanket for the back of the couch- a light throw to stave off the chill of scary movies and spring nights. So far I am at 32, using all scrap wool from various places, each color is like a reminder of old garments created or ripped out. There is a blue the color of glaciers I saw in Alaska and a taupe leftover from a museum project a few years ago.

Using up the remains of my stash is more than just a practical exercise, it is also an exercise of remembrance. One that takes me through my own personal history with knitting as I count down the squares needed and place them out on the rug, wondering where all the things I have created live now, and if perhaps they are keeping someone warm somewhere where it is not quite yet spring.

This weekend I knitted inside as I watched the snow fall outside. Of course, this being North Carolina, the snow didn’t stick to the ground, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t gorgeous.

Today I finally tackled the bookshelf that has been mocking me for almost two weeks. In a fit of impatient determination, I ignored the directions and hammered away. The result is a really crooked bookshelf that rivals the stairs to my grandmother’s attic in sturdiness. I fear that both could collapse at any moment, but am trying to remind myself that living on the edge is what makes life living… right?

Ineptitude aside, I am bolstered by the fact that I was mindful of both the snow and the bookshelf tinkering, instead of going about life as I all too often do, completely confused about what happened when as it continues to plow by me.

I have been taking photographs (almost) everyday since my 30th birthday in July, and am delighting in the visual reminder the pictures have given me. Instead of words which can get jumbled and perhaps sound the same, the photographs continue to take me back to a point in each day that set it aside from all the others.

And in glancing through them, I am reminded that as long as I dare to pay attention, even the days that seem the same and mundane are chances to see through new eyes.