Sarvinder Naberhaus 1200by Sarvinder Naberhaus

What inspires me? I’ve been pondering. Tonight on my walk, I was looking up. The universe was pitch-black, pierced with sparkles of light. I saw a mist of white, spray across the night sky. The Milky Way inspires me. Thinking about the Hubble telescope, gazing at the edge of the universe after its long lonely journey, sending off its last photograph and last silent farewell, the most mind blowing photo of our universe and its millions, if not billions of stars, and billions of galaxies, fills my stomach with butterflies.

Lines, lines inspire me. When I think that a true line goes on forever in both directions, farther than the Hubble Telescope, on to eternity, that fills my mind with wonder. And to think that if you bend a line so that the ends meet, that also goes on forever, Alpha and Omega. A circle is a line. That fills my mind with wonder.

And when I think of Einstein and the speed of light, that blows my mind, but then squaring the speed of light, that’s unfathomable.

And then I look at my dog, Judah, who wags his tail and greets me every morning without fail. Who is loyal to me, who always believes the best in me, and really doesn’t care how I perform. Just loves me. That fills me with warmth and wonder.

Miracles inspire me. A newborn soul. A newborn snowflake. The fact that there are more stars than grains of sand. The sound of squeaky snow. The silence of falling snow against a lamp-lit night. Tracks that cut and mark the snow, authoring a path. The starkness of a cardinal on a backdrop of white. A sunset that meets dusk and sends animals burrowing and settling for sleep. The warmth of a kitten sleeping on my lap. The whisper of a baby’s breath while sleeping. I see miracles and inspiration all around me. I find them in the simple little things. I stop and look. When I write, that’s what inspires me, and then I hope it inspires you.

Sarvinder lives in Iowa with her husband and three kids, two cats, and one border collie (who likes to herd their chickens). She credits her sparse writing style to her songwriting, which translates well into writing sparse text for children. Her first picture book, BOOM BOOM, was recently published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster. Her second book, BLUE SKY, is with Dial/Penguin and illustrator Kadir Nelson. You can learn more about Sarvinder by visiting her website, Sarvinder.com and her blog, SarvinderAuthor.blogspot.com.

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boomboomSarvinder is giving away a copy of BOOM BOOM.

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