What Are You Muse?
Following the elusive muse.
What makes it be so like quicksilver?
Have you ever tried trapping mercury? You can’t. And even though it’s right there under your grabbing fingers, you can’t pick it up! Try it sometime.
So similar to the muse, my muse. For each of us relies on our own varied inner muse. Obviously, there is no ‘muse’ to speak of. Not in the sense so often used. Well wait. Sure, there is, but we need to fill in the picture a little. As if muse is an entity or a fellow spirit hiding out who is full of winning stories.
Sorry to say it: That’s just plain not real.
Muse is your makeup. The emotions, beliefs, fears, pains, outlook, doubts, on and on forever, that together can be said to be one’s muse. We could even agree that the effectiveness of ones muse is , to a degree, how willing I may be to tell the truth, my truth. The great writers tell us this.
I’m trying to coax all those things that are me into a cohesive shape. One that, if properly turned, will become a story to share with others.
Doesn’t seem as if the muse possesses intelligence? It sure does me.
Every story ever written is, in fact, the writers muse staring you in the face. Obviously, my muse will provide me with the stuff to manifest in countless and different forms every time I pick up my pen. Neat, huh?
Every story is you or me, and that is our muse. So if you feel you’d like to meet your muse, well, reread one of your stories. There you are. Hello muse, how are you?
Here’s a question: If I read one of my old stories, will the muse which inspired me when I wrote it be the one that now reappears as I reread it? I, for one, don’t think so. How can it be? Considering that the muse is an ever-changing and evolving thing, like an energy.
I’d love to hear how other writers describe their muse. It would require, however, the need to settle, to relax and to step off the rigid and linear form of thinking. What does your muse look like? How does it present itself to you?
In a way, it’s a fascinating thing about us humans. Do we think animals ever pool their thinking in such ways so that they might relay a story to another? Doubtful. Though every day research seems to uncover more and more the animal’s ability to communicate beyond booty calls or anger or submission, or hunger.
But we’re equipped with an a to z accordion file stuffed with stuff, stuffed with us! Imagine, it’s right there for the grabbing. Every doubt you ever had, every tiny fear is still there hidden away in the almost endless folds, near and light-years away, of the mind/brain.
Writers, the good ones, are those who can successfully call on those experiences and form them into readable configurations. Configurations that are artfully crafted with a start, a middle, and hopefully a satisfying end. Sure, the story can end too in an unsolved tragedy, dark and sad.
Back to this notion of a muse. We package it into a neat image, yet different for everyone, an entity that is almost smart enough to tell us things. Think about that! We are so good at fanciful thinking and creating that which is the furthest from material reality.
And yet our muse is what will cough up enough elements of a subject, be it robbing a bank, running a farm, flying a fighter jet, growing a garden, on and on. From what we’ve seen, a writer can write all her or his life, story after story and the stuff, the muse, never runs out. Or more fittingly with the muse entity, the muse never tires, never says enough is enough.
That alone is enough to propel most of us into feverishly filling pages daily, combing the fields for that one cohesive unit, start, middle, end. Then the next day again. We do it again. Will it be any easier this time?
Even after so many years of doing this, has it really ever gotten any easier? Of course, it has, in some things such as the habit of daily sitting and writing, this is hardly a challenge anymore. My spelling is almost flawless, my paragraphs clipped neat and short, easy to read. But has it really gotten easier?
Does writing a story become easier? Hell no! This remains my number one challenge. The reason is that my muse, that thing we all have, changes around like a cosmic cloud, or closer to earth, like an amoeba, morphing, spreading, splitting, and moving.
Each day, we must first locate where our friend has gone off to. One can easily see why it is we personify our muse. Muse becomes as if a living being. Is this being us? It sure is! My take on it is that the more we identify with this mysterious flow of consciousness, the easier it may become.
We accept this. Knowing that muse is really just us meandering around in mind space, poking our noses into areas unknown to us. Or, in fact, investigating those things that have happened to us in our lives. Can be both.
So, what does your muse look like? That would be fun and maybe even a little enlightening to do a survey of how everyone perceives their muse to look like. Sure, I’ll go first.
My muse for the last many years has been like a dark, floating, moving cloud. It floats in the background of my mind. I can ‘see’ it. I might even address it. But I’m always aware of it. Like a ball of energy. There’s something about it that expresses an invulnerability. As if a hurricane could blow through and my muse wouldn’t be phased.
Over the years, I’ve attempted to apply more of a relatable visage to my muse, actual eyes, perhaps a smile or a scowl, with very little luck. It is as it is, at least for me! We come back to the key truth. That all of us have a muse and almost as a necessity, your muse differs completely from mine.
I’ve put my muse into various forms just to shake things up. Invariably, I’m back with my dark cloud. But for short periods I can work that my muse almost has a face, has expressions of joy and doubt. Through my effort, my muse can be vast as a universe or as tiny as a needle point. My muse never shows impatience towards me, as if anger or displeasure belongs to another part of my mind’s inner dynamics.
My muse remains apart from such human travails, and yet it is utterly human! Tell you something? At least it does for me. It’s like the muse is that knowing awareness that is unaffected by our physical reality. It’s a place that if we knew how to, we might find deep solace amid the muse, amid the noise.
But for now, we just keep up this silent toe to toe dance with our ‘friend’. When we complete a satisfying story, we might even say thanks.
