I’d like to say a quick word about inspiration…and Ray Bradbury…and knowing me and my history of blagging (blogging/blabbing)…it won’t be a “quick” word. So bow out now while you still can!

You’ve had your warning.

Inspiration constantly intrigues me. It’s the unstoppable feeling that wells up inside of your chest at the sight of a thicket of dense trees, glowing neon green in the sunlight (this just so happens to be what I’m looking at right now in my backyard…and it’s really doing it for me), 

the way a certain piece of music is written or how a particular scene in a film is artfully lit.

Inspiration = joy for me and I’m one of those people who’s obsessed with being inspired…I like being happy and I’m easy to please…

(and therefore easy to inspire). 

Inspiration is a constant hunger that I allow myself to feed as often as possible (hey, no calorie intake, what’s to lose?…Ok that was cheesy, but this is my blog. No rules). 

I have a lot of cool people in my life to thank for inspiring me (my husband, my family, all of you guys…and I mean that) 

because it makes my life extremely enjoyable on a daily basis no matter where I am…and also makes my life interesting even on days when life really isn’t particularly that interesting.

My husband and I play this sort of game where we try to imagine what we would do in worst case scenarios (ie: If there were a nuclear explosion and you were trapped in one store for 3 years what store would it be?…(the boring answer is usually Costco or Wal-Mart as you would have everything you needed to bunker down…A less plausible but more appealing answer is a Barnes and Noble so you’d be bored less often, and you’d come out a smarter person…provided you chose the right books to read. And If you don’t know who Ray Bradbury is yet, you have not been reading all of the right books already http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury)).

I’m a huge advocate of reading (and so is my husband, if you don’t believe me, the photo I included of him and our library is proof. He’s been collecting graphic novels since he was small and I can truthfully say I have never seen anyone read as much as he does. It’s nuts :).

The funny thing is that neither one of my parents particularly enjoy reading books as a pastime and yet they still made it a point to teach my siblings and I how cool books are and how important they are in cultivating creativity and empowering you imagination as a kid and every age after that (depending on what age you view as no longer being a kid…for me I’m thinking it might be around the age that I am dead).

Coming to my point of all these ramblings is that…It’s Ray Bradbury’s 90’s birthday today and I know he will never see this blog but I wanted to publicly wish him a happy birthday and thank him to him for inspiring me EVERY single time I pick up one of his books…and even if I’m not reading one that month. They always stick with me.

Many authors in my life (C.S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman, Lewis Carroll, Gabriel García Márquez, Madeleine L’Engle) helped shape (and still do) my imagination. But it’s Ray’s bday so he’s getting a shout out.

Up to the age of about 10 the only proper fantasy writings I’d ingested were C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles Of Narnia” (Extremely important books for me; I’ve read them about 6 times and to this day I still plan on naming one of my children after a character in those books). 

I mean, what kid doesn’t want there to be a magical world in their closet after reading those books?? 

I remember countless times wishing with everything in my body that, surely, If I wished hard enough, Narnia would be waiting behind my closet doors the next time I opened them. It never happened, but honestly If I had walked into a world where a giant lion was talking to me I probably would of s*** my pants, curled up into a ball and cried for my mommy…but that isn’t the point. The IDEA of it existing was all I needed as a little girl. 

I had my own small library of paperbacks meticulously organized…and crammed onto one bookshelf (about the size of a bedroom door) and had read all of the books, but up until the age of about 10 it had mostly consisted of the Little House on the Prairie series (and any series that extended from it), The Ramona books, Choose Your Own Adventure books, and (dare I confess) the Sweet Valley Girls series (not the “teen” one…that was “too mature” for me yet, my mom always said….I think they kissed boys in that series).

Around the time that our band Eisley was beginning to form and write songs and create our own lyrics (I was about 13) a friend of the family who knew I loved reading put a book in my hands called “Dandelion Wine”. It was written by Mr.Bradbury and exactly what I needed! I couldn’t believe how rich it was. This was a writer who created the most impossibly wonderful new ways to describe perfectly mundane things, like the way dust blew through the air and the way a boy’s feet sounded running across the pavement in the summertime. 

Perfectly ordinary things and yet he somehow had figured out a way to make them sing. A vibrant way of describing every detail that made you feel like you were physically in the story. Like you were tasting the dust on your own lips or that you actually were the little boy, breathing the scent of the tarmac in and out of your lungs as your feet pounded the hot earth in pursuit of a nonsensical summertime adventure. (ok, don’t take that whole imagining myself as a little boy out of context).

If it hadn’t of been for the picnic of Ray Bradbury stories I delightfully consumed after reading “Dandelion” a lot of Eisley’s lyrics might not be the same! I just remember after reading his books I wasn’t afraid to write ridiculous sounding phrases like, “I awoke the dawn, saw horses growing out the lawn or “I glimpsed a bat with butterfly wings, oh what marvelous things”. I’m not comparing the writings of a goofy, nerdy teenage girl to one of the greatest writers of all time, I’m simply saying, thank you Mr.Bradbury (and all authors) for encouraging and inspiring me to expand my imagination. I’ll ever be grateful. And…a Happy 90’th Birthday to Mr. Ray Bradbury

I’ll end this incredibly lengthy blog by saying to all of you…thanks for reading, and also for inspiring me:)

xoxo,

Sherri

“Stuff your eyes with wonder…Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories” - Ray Bradbury

My (mostly) used-bookstore collection of Bradbury. I like finding old copies with new covers that I don’t already own. The Dandelion Wine copy my first one.

When Eisley was on tour a few years ago my sister Stacy and I accidentally stumbled onto Ray’s Hollywood walk of fame star. 

My husband has filled out guest bedroom with his ever-growing collection.

Mine is in the living room. Smaller, and mostly made up of second hand science fiction, fantasy, illustration, photography and children’s books.

“Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead’ - A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury