I is for Inspiration

From the memoirs of Billie Harper, looking back on her learning journey.

We used to think of inspiration as rare—as something that struck like lightning or visited the gifted. But I’ve learned it’s not that dramatic. Inspiration lives quietly. It arrives when we pay attention.

I remember a moment during my early learning years, sitting by the window in our archive room at mum’s house in Toodyay. I’d been poring over one of Diana’s journals—the ninth one, faded at the edges. She wrote about standing in protest with others in the spring of 2024, holding signs and hope. She was tired. But what struck me wasn’t the resistance—it was the line that followed: “And still, we sang.”

That sentence stayed with me. Not just for what it said, but for what it stirred. The idea that even in exhaustion, you can choose song—that’s inspiration. Not escape, but remembering who you are in the thick of it.

Later, I came to see inspiration not as a spark but as a remembering. A pattern you notice, a story you feel, a line you can’t stop hearing. Sometimes, it’s a flower blooming too early. Sometimes, it’s a child asking a hard question. It’s quiet, but it changes you.

I don’t chase inspiration anymore. I listen for it, I leave space, I watch for what makes me pause—and in that pause, something always shifts.

We don’t need more grand gestures. We need moments that move us toward what matters. That’s what inspiration really is.