List Friday: The Muses
June 1, 2006
I found my muse, I can't say where or how, but I found her again and you'll be happy to know it's not Bitch Lawyer, (tho she can be fun) nor is it I(nner) C(ritic) that drunken whore, (tho I heard from her and she's definitely coming for a summer visit, so lock up the vodka, your husbands, and male friends).
In no particular order, here's what I need to sample in some form each week in order to avoid bedhead - i.e. that flattened back of head hairdo I get when I've spent all waking hours after work watching sitcoms and crime shows instead of doing something:
- books - you know that song from South Pacific: "There ain't nothin' like a dame" - well, there ain't nothin' like a book (please sing along in your falsetto). Good writing makes my mind race and my fingers itch to write and before I know it, I've filled a journal page with idea sor broke out the laptop and started afresh (again) on those novels....
- Broadway show albums - see above reference to South Pacific, add West Side Story, and anything sung by Ethel Merman. Ask Mr. Pom. He's seen the entire Pomegranate sisterhood break out in song around the living room without a karaoke machine in sight. Just play us "There's no business like show business" and we will soon morph into playing all the characters in "The King and I".
- Company in the studio. Sometimes I need absolute silence and isolation to get the work done. But when I want to play, or get inspired, or just futz around, I like to have someone else there to play off of. My dream is a studio with space for two. Right now There's space for one to work and one to sit and look through my stuff, but one of these days, I'm moving up to the third floor and putting in dormers with giant windows and those white curtains blowing in the breeze.
- Salt water. Preferably with an inland breeze. The blue expanse of Long Island Sound. The limitless horizon of the Atlantic off Nauset Beach, even the turquoise of a swimming pool. I am not an Aquarian for nothing. Water heals what sun can't cure.
- Balance. I've been seriously out of whack since Christmas. Too much sturm and drang at work, at home, in my head, and in my gut. Something shifted inside me this week, and after a stressful day with issues at home, and coming off of a disastrous month at work, I somehow just let it all go a day or two ago. I almost felt the "click" that my yin and yang were back in sync. The longer days and the evening light have garnered me a little space.
- Let the outside in. Walk after dinner, a drive down to the water, A quick pull of all the weeds along the front walk, and sitting on the porch.
- Handwork. I used to piece and quilt by hand. Then I learned to strip piece and quilt by machine. Then I dropped it all to draw, paint, and immerse myself in mixed media. Then I started knitting. And now somehow, I am hand piecing, using all new fabrics, but with my aunt's old threads which are surprisingly still sturdy. god, I've forgotten how much I like to sit in a crowd and just work on my stuff, listening to others talk, chiming in once in awhile, but keeping myself centered on what's in my hands.
- And of course, chocolate, coffee, coffee-flavored chocolate, and then more coffee and bittersweet chocolate. Chocolatinis. Kalhua. Mudslides. It's all in the endorphins, and in my mouth, and on my thighs. And I really don't give a damn!