Where the Muse Finds Me …
Where I write
In response to the Snapshots Winter Challenge.
For many years, my office consisted of what was basically a hallway with two doors (leaving little room for bookshelves) and my husband’s closet. When we first moved into our home, twenty years ago, my little space came complete with pink stick-on squares of vinyl flooring, the odd odor of old dog pee, and a balcony which was, literally, falling off of the house.
I remember plugging in two space heaters to stay warm on cold winter days and dreaming of a fireplace. I just knew the muse would be able to find me more easily with a fireplace! But, alas, that vision would take a while to manifest….
As it often goes, we ended up remodeling just about everything else before we got to “our” space. And once we started, my “dream” did not align well with the ideas of the general contractor we had hired. So, we fired him, and, for a year, I put on a different hat and went into the remodeling business.
My project was to turn a 1970’s home into a little French Villa. We re-did the outside with stone and gutted the master bedroom, bathroom and my office. Taking charge of this was one of the best decisions I ever made, because it turned out exactly like I wanted it to (even when the project morphed and grew and changed along the way).
We live in an unincorporated area and are a bit off-the-beaten path, a little closer to nature here. I love it because I can have a Buddha in my front yard, and nobody cares about what color paint you choose.
We added a leaded-glass window through which rainbows now dance across my desk in the late afternoons.
And this is the disarray that accompanied the new fireplace:
The kitties are quite happy with the new fireplace arrangement too. When the damp mists and the heavy rains swept across Southern California this winter, they were quite cozy tucked up in their little beds right next to me. I often have all four kitties snoozing alongside me while I write. Little Bisou’s soft snores just melt my heart.
Perhaps the best part is the new balcony, just outside of my office. Here hummers buzz and dive and congregate at their feeders all day long.
The other new spot where I can dream about poems and plot lines is in my little yellow slipper tub.
Nature, and and all of her “small moments” and intricacies, is perhaps, my biggest source of inspiration. Those of you familiar with my work, will recognize many of the characters in my stories and poems from my backyard, where Mr. Squirrel taunts the kitties daily, tossing bits of pinecones at them from the treetops, and where the orioles return each year to nest high up in the palms.
The other place in which ideas often find me is in my yoga room. I have been teaching yoga for twenty years now, and I also teach courses on topics like the Upaniṣads, the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpika and the Yoga Sūtra for Loyola Marymount University’s Yoga Philosophy Certificate Program. I have been trying to finish writing a book, Interconnected, which weaves together Indian mythology with modern science and environmental topics for quite a while—perhaps a little too long because the whole lay-out of the book has recently morphed—yet again!
I am not sure that my writing is any better, really, in my new office, but I do feel the connection to the muse in the beauty of that space. Virginia Wolf once said that we should all have “a room of one’s own.” And, I do think that, somehow, my blue glass cabinet pulls, the gold lions holding up the mantle, and my fairy-branch chandelier somehow enhance the creative process. It was worth the wait!
If you enjoyed this piece, you might also enjoy some of the stories inspired by the yard:
Story and photos ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.
