The Muse

I once again looked up from my book when I sensed someone coming through the door—I had been doing this for about ten minutes or so in anticipation of my somewhat-blind date—and instantly knew that this time it was Susanne. An iridescent spirit, her arrival had the effect of the sun shining right there inside Starbucks. She wore an ocean blue, made-from-a-talented-hand sweater. Soft, thick and stopping short at the waist, seemingly in an intentional effort to resist overpowering her petite frame, the sweater was further balanced by an almost floor-length skirt of light-colored denim that flared out with a trace of mermaid to reveal the kind of boots you want to own in the midst of New England’s end-to-winter when you still wish to be fashionable. Part Muse, part cowgirl, I thought. Her ethereal spirit pulled into a body that was rooted in earth. For the second time that week I knew I was in the presence of a goddess, this time, a goddess of word and page.

If I hadn’t already been taken, her hair would have been enough to get me there. Butter-blonde and naturally curly in a wiry kind of way. Already a shade of wild, a curl or two stuck out further than the rest, mimicking the coils that would spring from an old mattress in the days before mattresses became wire-free. The blonde coils framed a face whose makeup was literally natural. I remember wondering whether she was wearing make-up at all. It was a brief moment of confusion. Her eyes popped, cheeks flush, smile bright, and skin well-toned and glowing. After wondering about this within the privacy of my own thoughts, I concluded that her skin was bare; it took this intentional questioning to discover that it was blood and peace and energy that created the beauty. A beauty which invited me in. And I was happy to linger there.

We met to talk about my writing and the prospect of her mentoring me in some way—through a workshop or some one-on-one time. I had arrived about 45 minutes early, bought a cup of coffee, and sat down with a book. It was then, a few short moments later, after an impulse to take notes in the margins, that I realized I didn’t have a pen. What kind of writer was I?! The doubts and self-criticism crept in. Traveling without a pen! I don’t deserve to call myself a writer. What the hell am I doing here? I tried to put my thoughts aside, forcing myself to instead listen to the pompous self-advertisement of the college student at the next table, lecturing a group of his peers about the inauthenticity of the acting business, which he clearly saw-through. The entrance of the goddess mercifully put a stop to my unwanted attunement.

Her soft, gentle, strong presence reassured me and allowed me to tune back in to myself before we even shook hands. I could breathe out some of my vulnerability and allow it to hang between us. Susanne and I talked for about 45 minutes; me sharing my unclear sense of what I was searching for and revealing my fear about somehow destroying the sacred activity that writing had become for me. Was my objective in seeking a mentor to try to perfect something whose joy lay in being one of the few activities that I didn’t feel I had to master? I was worried, not about her eventual feedback, but about my intentions. I knew how capable I was of destroying my own desire, of sabotaging the hope of even some small joy. Writing was the exception. Was I about to destroy that? I thought, yes. What was I doing here?

I shared my ambivalence the best I could, describing the blogging I’d been up to for about a year and half now—how I wrote about anything purely for the sake of writing, the rare self-expression that accompanied the experience for me, and the unfamiliar joy I experienced when I wrote a piece I really liked. I told Susanne that I had written as work in the past, writing others’ projects and such—helping to craft a guide to understanding psychological trauma, a chapter about being a psychologist in private practice, and the many, many dry documents that included things like policies, procedures, bylaws, and project summaries. Creative writing in any fashion was new to me. I shared my very tentative desire to write about the midlife crisis I was still utterly in the midst of and how I thought there may be a story within me that needed to be told. I hinted at the internal struggle that had become my life, within which writing still only shimmered behind a rather thick veil. Although I sensed a future in which these various pieces might come together, and just barely glimpsed how writing might be part of this, I could not articulate how or why or when. So I did my best to acknowledge the Crisis, to point to the veil, to admit my desire and to cop to the accompanying fears.

That the blog, the writing, had saved my life; this I left unsaid.