The Elusive Muse
The rumors are rampant.
She’s shacked up on a beach in Rosarita with that singer/songwriter from Ann Arbor, whispering poetry in his ear while he strums and scribbles in his battered spiral-bound notebook…
She’s snowed in and tending to the wood stove in Yosemite, humming something infectiously tuneless while the young literary genius completes her novel in the glow of firelight…
She’s stroking the arm of the Argentine sculptor, guiding his hand along the curve of stone. She’s suggesting a rhyme scheme to the poet in New Zealand, turning the pages for a pianist in Copenhagen. I hear she’s even running a bath for the tired painter who’s just completed four canvases in the studio down the block from where you sit right now, pen in hand, staring in dismay at the blank sheet of paper in front of you.
The Muse. She is Elusive.
And it seems like she’s everywhere except where you need her to be: right there by your side, serving as your creative midwife, birthing your brainchildren and soothing your worried mind.
She’s a fickle one, that muse. So unreliable. Is it any wonder you can’t get a damn thing done?
Ah, yes. Cue the violins. Pull back on the lonely writer as he lays down his pen and picks up the remote.
Cut to the moon disappearing behind a cloud. The muse is a no-show. There’ll be no art made here tonight.
The Muse. She is Leery.
Okay, that was fun.
Now let’s see what’s really going on.
The other day she was sitting at your kitchen table, stirring honey into her mug of tea while you noodled around on the internet in the other room.
Last weekend you invited her out to breakfast, then stood her up in favor of an extra hour of sleep and 45 minutes solving the Giant Sudoku.
And this morning you walked right by her on your way to the coffee shop after promising you’d meet her at your desk, first thing.
The Muse. She is Exasperated.
Because she’s a grown up, and she likes her artists to be grown-ups, too. She likes us to be dependable. She likes us to keep our word. She likes us to show up.
Not to wait for her.
Not to hope for her.
But to set pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, paint to canvas, and begin. It’s that action we take, that movement toward our Heart’s Desire, the motion of the pen, the brush, the fingers on the keys, that draws her to us and lets her know we’re here not to wait or to hope, but to work.
She likes that, too. The work.
So show her you’re serious about the work and she’ll put you on her route. She might not sit down with you every day, but she’ll wander by your window and peek inside. When she sees you at the the desk, at the keyboard, at the easel, keeping your appointment with your art day after day, you’ll get her attention. And her affection. And her respect.
You’ll also get your art made.
Isn’t she amazing?
* * * * *
Related posts:
She is. She really is. I love this.