Missing: Muses, Inspiration and Other Delights
This art is entitled “dance of the muses” by Julian Romanus and how I wish they would dance though my house once again…
I have been quiet on my blog, the muses have been silent…I have not felt inspired and I don’t have much to say, to write, or even contemplate… maybe it is the stifling heat and humidity of summertime in Washington, DC…
Maybe it is the fact that we went on vacation at the beginning of the summer instead of the end, and I just haven’t really returned to the rhythm and schedule of life before the beach…I mean my body is here, and even my mind on certain days, but my heart is struggling to return to this stifling city… I sit and stare at a white sheet of paper and wait… no inspiring thoughts come.
Sometimes I am disciplined enough to do as Anne Lamont recommends in bird by bird, to just write…. something! so I try, but my entries of late usually begin, “I am feeling uninspired and uninspiring.” eventually, I resort to writing my “to do” list,(that counts right;) and i get adequately distracted, or so tired that I need a nap after thinking about all there is to do… (except on my writing days, then I find all the mundane things that “must” be done, like organize my Tupperware drawer, clean my coffee maker, or match socks… anything to avoid the reality that nothing is coming as I sit to write)…
Or get depressed that I am not inspired, motivated or disciplined. I know that writers must endure times of little to no inspiration, and so I seek to be disciplined enough to do what great writers advise…write anyway, write something, write daily…and I must confess that my diligence in following said advice is lacking… in fact some days, I just look at my journal, sitting there on the table, waiting… and I think that I couldn’t possibly bear staring at a blank page…again.
Thus I move straight to the mundane and distracting tasks…so, where are the muses, are they hiding, have they abandoned me in my decadent extravagance of having a day set aside for writing, are they punishing me for taking for granted the myriad of thoughts, paragraphs and snippets that I have failed to record?
All I know is that they are not here, for even my “fall back,” my “no matter what is going on, inspiration…” the usually cathartic, artistic expression of collaging feels dry, sterile, and predictable…and that is a sure sign that the muses are missing, because making collages is just plain fun as well, and yet, they have no allure of late! last spring, when there was a great deal of pain to bear, I found a brief respite as I returned to making collages. blank pages filled easily…what words could not express, images hinted at, …and the process was cathartic and soul-soothing. (of course there were snippets of paper, images, and other ephemera all over the family room, and that made my family crazy at times… but sanity for me at any price was the order of the day;)
so I wait…and I hope that tomorrow I will have the discipline to begin again, to try and rediscover the rhythmic living that brings space and room for the muses to return… and if I fail again tomorrow, well there is the next day, and the day after that as well…