Corona was said to be approaching, spreading across the borders, officially reported in Italy and Algeria. The weather this winter has been all but wintery. It was said that the virus doesn't survive in the heat, that's why spring rushed in and February has been warm enough for the bees to hatch. I found it uplifting to see a premature hatching of the bees! It was said that the virus's fatality was overrated. They reported statistics in the radio this morning about it and the Taxi driver said it was America. Why wasn't it spread in Denmark, why wasn't it in I don't know where in Europe? How come China's economy was getting too strong? he said; they built a frigging hospital in 10 days! One expects anything in politics, indeed; not everyone, however is endowed with such level of political analysis. My friend Sarah, fond of documentaries, said that the Chinese ate everything that moved: bugs, bats, turtles, maggots… you name it! From another perspective, the virus was associated with God's revenge, which accounted for divine justice. But I doubt this theory is still valid now that precautions are recommended from our own ministry of health. A doctor in the radio said that they had almost found a medicine, one that was, not newly created, but an old one that when tried out on patients, they sort of breathed better… On the other hand, it was a virus, my father said, and viruses don't have a treatment. It was exactly like a flu only a bit stronger (he knows about the stats) and it was common for the flu to kill tons of people every year. It was just that the Chinese are too many. That's why it appeared like an epidemy. Temperature has started to drop down. Well, gladly! It hasn't rained for too long and it was said that we might instead die of hunger if the rainless heat persisted. Even after the official declaration of the first Tunisian case (Taxi man said it was probably a hundred cases already but they wouldn't say), one would still scroll among all kinds of jokes in the social media. I even saw the virus itself having a fb account and commenting that it had never been so humiliated, so disgracefully slandered! Mom hears the radio, and all they talk about is prevention methods. She said it was a ball of crap. The garlic price went from 8 to 30 dinars! A mere exploitation. People have no mercy toward each other and expect God to have mercy! She told my brother to wash his hands frequently, but he didn't really believe in soap. “They found no medicine that would kill it, and you think soap will?” I'm actually seeing a professionally illustrated poster by Tunisian Red Crescent saying literally “Don't kiss me, don't hug me. A smile to my face makes me happy!” Dad, with an almost gay detachment insisted it might only be serious to people who were vulnerable: The old, the sick, the frail… otherwise it's just a flu. The mail man at work whose heart's been operated more than once said “So what? Let it drop down a little” (referring to the population), “some filtering would be good”. I think he's the only one who heartily acknowledges the virus's right as a lifeless organism to coexist. Does this thing only affect humans? I wonder, because I care to see more bee swarms coming along in the spring; I might even catch some and populate a hive or two.

Simplicity is a virtue or so I've been told, so I'll be brief with my introduction. I wrote a poem, filed it away and today I intend to pull it from that file. I'm not going to post the poem itself here today simply because I am one part strategic and two parts coward. In truth, I simply want to use this article as a space to share a snapshot of my creative process and hopefully affirm for fellow writers that inspiration can come from anywhere. Be it a hackneyed topic, a vague metaphor or a vignette specific to your life, inspiration is very personal and organic. No two people see the world the same way. Even identical twins with the same political, religious and social leanings spot things in this world that their counterpart would never take note of on their own. That's what makes the creative process so beautiful: the minute differences in how individuals make sense of the world around them. The snapshot I intend to share is a picture of this concept of the uniqueness of perception and how the basic process of taking in our environment lends itself to the creative process. Without further ado, onto the snapshot, I promised. Growing up in the United States I remember always being bombarded with documentaries and articles about "run-of-the-mill" people overcoming insane obstacles or outwitting life and finding unfettered success as a result. I remember watching a movie about John Hopkins in my middle school health class and thinking to myself, "There is no way I can measure up to that". I was (okay maybe I still am) bad at math, I was an average science student and I was convinced that everything I wrote fell on deaf ears. Point being, I went onto high school and my first job feeling trapped beneath the weight of unrealistic expectations and a perfectionists attitude. Being the quirky kid I was, my default response for that level of internal anguish was to put my angst into words. So I did. Hence, the poem I mentioned earlier came to be. Considering my volatile emotional state at the time, I drew on my feelings of hopelessness as I began the poem. Oddly enough, as I wrote the piece took a turn from a desolate tone to a more angry tone. I suppose part of my brain turned the issue I was writing about around and asked, "Why am I being presented with such lofty expectations in the first place?" The focus shifted from the feelings induced by the expectations placed on me to the motives behind those expectations. That simple shift in thinking added gravity to my poem that otherwise would've been absent. The poem was no longer a simple complaint. It now presented the issue of youth feeling hopeless in the face of unrealistic expectations and explained to the reader that the problem has layers. The poem now felt like it had a purpose beyond my personal catharsis and I felt more impactful as a poet despite hiding the work in my google drive for almost half a decade now. In any case, I looked around myself and saw a pattern: un-proportional expectations causing kids to want to give up. Then I put that observation on paper and found myself thinking about the "who, what, when, where, why and how" of the issue. A thoughtful poem and a reflective article about the process of writing it later, I find that the issue I captured on paper all those years ago is still relevant. The abridged moral of the story: inspiration can come from anywhere. So, take inspiration as it comes and don't underestimate the value of whatever comes out of it.