Mojo JoJo

Okay if you've parented little girls any time in the last decade, you know who I'm talking about when I say Mojo JoJo.  If not, here he is in all his shining glory:

Source


That's right.  He's a cartoon character.  Mojo was introduced to the mainstream world through the creators of the Powerpuff Girls.  And while Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup drive me bugnuts (oh the alliteration), Mojo jumps to mind every single time someone utters the word Mojo. 

To speak plainly, I insert the word 'Jojo' in my head every time after I hear the word Mojo. 

Silly, right?

And you know what?  Writers can be silly, by nature.  They can also be foolish, dreamy, bleary-eyed, and hopeful. 

But the one thing a writer can never be is without ideas. 

There are always stories formulating in their head.  There are always words they are reaching for. 

I can overhear a conversation on the commuter bus and I have a story off and running before I walk down that last step on my way into work. 

Or I can watch my children playing together in the back yard and I'm taken back to the time where I ran wild with my girl cousins during the Summers of my youth. 

The scent of vanilla reminds me of slathering the stuff all over in order to avoid mosquitos and chiggers on my small arms and legs before running out the back door of grandparent's house to let the wooden door smack loudly against the frame as I ran pel-mel towards adventure. 

Burying my nose in the pages of a book reminds me of my little yellow flashlight and late nights reading under my sheets, heart hammering at every creek and shift of our old house. 

Listening to Waylon Jennings reminds me of falling asleep atop of a blue suitcase in the back of a white Nova with the windows down and my bangs dancing across my forehead as the sunshine warmed the world behind my eyelids.  

One of the best things of being a writer, and reader, is that you have a passport to the future and the past. 

You get to travel far away or to stay as close as your favorite blanket fort. 

You get to experience the life of super hero, their arch nemesis, or a little red-haired girl falling in love with a boy who teased and taunted her throughout childhood until she broke a slate over his head.

Movies are great and so is television but the world I've always loved is the one where my Mojo Jojo resides:  My imagination. 

In there I get to be a domestic goddess who makes trifles and has frozen appetizers on hand for guests who happen to drop by.  (in reality I have fish sticks and Coors Light if you wanna bop by my back door and say hullo)  Or I can still be that little girl who wanted to be a veterinarian and fix all of the broken animals or Pocahontas or Laura Ingalls or to ride off on a unicorn with Charles Wallace Murry.  Or I get to be the barista with all of the best coffee drinks.  Or the owner of the local small bookshop where people congregate to knit and bitch.  Or I'm the mom that makes things from scratch, sews her kids clothes, and organizes the best birthday parties around. 

Don't get me wrong, I love stepping back out in reality.  Because there I, too, get to be the plucky heroine when I pop Barbie's head back on when she's accidentally been decapitated or when I drop off an iced coffee drink to my teen while he's working or when I manage to find the hubby's missing left shoe. 

It's all about perception, folks.

Inside our heads and outside of bodies lies all of the inspiration in the world if we go looking for it. 

So, pray tell, what inspires you?  Do tell.