Inspiration is a quality that can't be forced or manufactured. You can't schedule it to your iCal, nor predict it with Doppler machinery. Anyone with a creative side is constantly searching for that spark of inspiration, that blast of wind that drives the pen, births the song, creates the dance. Sometimes, that spark is a modern muse; a person that has just the right amount of chemistry to permit inspiration a formal place by your side.
Many, many years ago I met a man who lived in my neighborhood. John Down the Street was attractive and we hit it off. We became lovers long before the term "friends with benefits" was coined, pocketed and mass-marketed. I had never experienced such passion and lust; our evenings together should have been filmed and sold as "How to Please" videos. I would never sleep over despite his insistence. I wanted to be alone, by myself, and not for dramatic effect.
I wanted to write.
Sex with John flooded my mind with Greek-like inspiration. The Sexy Muse in me wrote poems, plays, stories. I was so moved by this new waterfall of creativity, My Sexy Muse, that I wrote a few pieces in his honor, which were later produced into a performance piece. John and I shared knowing winks at curtain call.
I continued to write after our sexual tryst ended. John, just a memory, weaved out of my woven life. A bright thread beautifully patterned in my blanket life. My creative waterfall flowed, strong and violent sometimes, gentle and soothing another. I could always write. My Sexy Muse was by my side.
And then I got married.
It all stopped. My waterfall dried up. Dry stone and dirt ran to the lip of a long drop that poured into mud. A dead place. I would put pen to paper and I would see nothing, no words no ideas. Space. Dark black suffocating space. I would try and meditate, will some inspiration into me. Cold. I visualized a creative fire, blazing and warming me. Here was my muse! I would close my eyes and see burnt wood, dried up and turned to ash. I was broken. I was alone.
I took a respite to see my friend Jane the Fierce Lion during my creative hospitalization. Every morning she and her husband John the Calm would serve me coffee and breakfast. There was no schedule to follow, no plans to make. I healed Me with love and forgiveness. One evening as I washed the dished, Jane came behind me, hugged me and said,
"When you feel appreciated, you are inspired."
And suddenly, I felt a shift. My waterfall hadn't dried up; it had been blocked, dammed up. Log and stone had been methodically placed to prevent my creativity from flowing. All effective change is gradual. Jane's small moving loving gesture pushed a log out of the way. With every loving act I gave myself, be it dancing, or laughing, or talking openly with a good friend, another log rolled out of place. The creative water began to flow over the edge. A steady stream of creativity poured into the forgiving pool of ideas. I performed in two plays, I wrote a few pieces. I returned to the Me I always was; confident, strong, feisty, opinionated. I found her, my Sexy Muse, peaceful. She had been asleep.
Recently I met someone. This New John Down the Street is confident and strong, very attractive. We have a tangible chemistry that is nothing short of two people who really like each other. After one evening of serious hot kissing and heavy petting, I felt that long ago familiar flood in my mind. I rushed home to find my Sexy Muse wide awake and restless.
My waterfall has roared back to life. Wet, loud and ferocious.
