"Following the stream..." ~ Jane Eyre

Who is your muse? Whom do you recite incantations for when you need inspiration to write? I always found the concept of the muse intriguing. When I think of a muse, I think of a marble statue made in Ancient Greece of a goddess sitting in the MET, but in my head she doesn't have any arms; she has a chipped nose and cracks in her feet- perhaps from the difficult move to get her from Greece to New York City back in the early 1900's when she had to ride over in a boat and not a plane. It is not at all surprising that the dominant paradigm for inspiration to artists is a figure in the female form. Shakespeare himself pulled muses into his sonnets and gave them their rightful place in his art. If Shakespeare were alive today, I would stalk him. I would beg him to come to my apartment for a dinner of cheddar cheese and beer fondue, making the gruel thick and slab, and we would talk about his characters as we stuck our forks in bite sized pieces of french bread and dunked them into the bubbly pot. I would ask him questions about his sources for inspiration - about his own personal muses - because you cant write lines in Hamlet such as these and not have a woman in mind when you write: Doubt that the stars are fire Doubt that the sun doth move Doubt Truth to be a liar But Never Doubt I love. Note: I remember reading those words as a young girl of eleven and vowing I would marry the man who ever recited those words to me. Hence, I am almost thirty and unwed. Some men are as emotionally witless as the Prince of Denmark is. Still, I believe that in my stack of cards there is a man who will be more like Prince Hal (though I do not condone his treatment of John Falstaff). It is nights like this when there is a snow storm and I am all cozied up in my apartment that I wish I had a dog, perhaps even a Great Dane. I don't know where the dog would fit, but I would love to own an animal that was my height and that I could keep in the house. There are lots of things I dreamed of when I was eleven that I thought I would have by now: a dog, a diamond, a daisy garden. Tonight I have a 91 point glass of Merlot, sparkling white lights on a Christmas tree, and diamond passed down as an heirloom. I am half interested in writing and half interested in getting my tarot cards read online right now. I have no idea what question to ask tonight. Will there ever be an heirloom tomato in my future that I like? Will I ever travel to Denmark? Will I ever again feel as romantic towards life as I did when I was eleven? In eleven days I am going to be on vacation - I cannot wait. I am off for eleven days. Aside from the revelry of Christmas and New Year's, I shall revel in the time away from my beloved desk. I plan on watching Amelie for the eleventh time in the past two months. The character is a must of sorts for my soul. Tout est parfait en cet instant.