Your best writing may not be done at a writing desk. Your most joyful art may not be made standing at an easel or a drafting table. I personally love noisy places like cafes and restaurants with their lively white noise ironically keeping the world at a distance for an hour or two. Many a book has flowed out of me in such places. A few of my favorite spots are Mocha Java, my hometown’s local coffee spot, or Isabella’s Restaurant right next door. Also the Amtrak train from Boston to NYC and back again provides almost eight hours of trundling creative bliss. So try a new locale for that next project, assignment, or creative endeavor. If you’re a teacher, why not teach math in the gym – or science in the art room. Or find a good tree and do some journaling. If you’re a busy business professional, try writing that next proposal in a coffee shop. If your boss fires you because of it, you’ll just have more time to write poetry and learn to juggle. You’ll often find inspiration and answers in the most unlikely places.

Why not just dump your schedule in the compost heap for a day? Not just work, but supposed “free time.” I have a friend whose weekends are booked solid with weddings baby showers, barbeques, and special events. She sighs heavily sometimes wondering when she’ll get a day for herself. Sometimes it just takes a brave pencil line through an event or two and re-claim an ambling, aimless, wonderful day. It is good to not know where the day might take you. I think that is also a good model for learning. Toss the scope and sequence charts out the window along with the lesson plans and text books. Just begin the journey and see where it takes you. I think wonderful classrooms are places where teachers are surprised along with their students as they discover something new together. THAT is ishful learning.

A young artist friend of mine, Kate, used the phrase “artify” in an e-mail to me this week. Something to the effect of “Let’s artify the world.” I liked that very much. Not only is it a word that the spell checker is thrown by, but it sounds like art and fortify all in one. I do believe passionately that the arts do fortify, enrich, and develop our human potential for innovation, understanding and empathy. On that note, let’s all get artified this week. Visit a museum with a friend, bring a child to an opera, write someone a real letter and dip it in color, buy a colossal coffee table book about Mexican murals, or write the lyrics to a song titled “Artify the World.”