My muse amuses me. I often hear people talking about their muse and I don’t have one. I have hundreds of thousands of one. I get my inspiration from the wind and leaves or a comment overheard on the street. I once wrote a lovely post about an ‘alligator’. A small childhood used that word to his mother to describe the elevator we were all on. I’ve written poems based on a cracked tail light and a misheard comment about soup. I am inspired by the people I read and by the actors I am entranced by. I am placated by a wooden spoon that my Mother used when I was a child, I still have it. It is so full of memories and it is now almost black. I would never part with it. I love the memories that creep up in the back of my mind when I least expect it and the wonderful vacations I can take meandering through my childhood. These are my muses.

I have written about a little red wagon and a broken pencil.  I have written about hopes and dreams and puppy dog tails. Raindrops hitting the glass or rainbows sneaking behind buildings.  Laughter and tears, a quiet moment with a book or a rousing rendition of cello music. All these things stimulate and provoke and tantalize. These are my muses. This is what compels me to write to share and to learn.

I am often flooded by ideas that won’t stop coming. I am downing but I am also excited and terrified. How do I grasp, how do I hold on. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes they walked by me never to be seen again or perhaps to show up in something else. Sometimes the ideas sit and percolate. They need to be stronger, more full-bodied. I can wait. I write a few words down and sometimes I go back days, weeks, years later and pick up where I left off or I am stimulated by another thought and I will go down another rabbit hole. This is my world. I love, love, hate, love it!  I am inspired and I despair in equal measure. But I’m having fun. It is my muse de jour that I have grabbed by the tail and I’m trying to hang on. It might be a bumpy ride, but damn I’m having fun!