Tag: Writing

finding the muse · prose · Writing

Finding the Muse

AmyLeave a comment

There are many ways to acquire a muse, and just as many ways to lose one. I’ve gone long stretches of time without a muse, and it does impact my desire to write.

Muses don’t have to be external to one’s self, they can be a self driven motivation from deep within I suppose, but in my case, the muse is external to me. Whether it be a person, place or thing, my muse is not a part of my consciousness, or subconscious, for that matter.

I’ve been reading about famous writers and artists and how they’ve found their muses. In many of the cases, their muses are a person they know, and more often than not, a person they have a relationship with. But I’m going to go out on a limb here: a muse is only inspiring to me when the person, place, or thing is not part of my everyday life, or anyone that I have had a relationship with. Diving deeper, I realized I employ limerence to allow my muses entry into my thoughts.

Limerence is a hot topic on self-help social media due to it being regarded as a negative aspect of what the brain can do to deal with past trauma – and I am not claiming that it isn’t; as a sufferer of childhood trauma myself, I understand coping mechanisms and I am not here to belittle or in any way discount trauma, and how people cope with it. However, I know the difference between using limerence to gain creative inspiration versus limerence to replicate feelings of love. Limerence is not love, and love is not ever going to be limerence, and there’s no two ways about it.

But utilizing limerence to find and keep a muse? You’d be surprised how many creative ideas start to form. In fact, I believe if you get too close to your muse, you’ll actually lose the creative force that limerence offers. It is an idealized way of seeing someone and romanticizing that person (if your muse is a person, that is) in your life. The less I interact with the person, the better for my creative process.

I like to keep my muses as long as possible, because there are stretches of time where the Land of the Muses is a parched desert with tumbleweeds blowing all around and nothing but mirages for miles. Some interaction with the muse is helpful, otherwise, what can one use as inspiration? But too much of a good thing is not always a good thing. The more you get to know a muse personified, the more the gold shiny coat wears off and underneath it really is only nickel and it starts itching your ears and your neck and you’re allergic to it and you’ve got to throw it away.

I just recently realized that I use limerence to obtain my muses and it surprised my brain, which is confounding, because Brain is in charge of that stuff. Brain should be better organized, but Brain also uses sticky notes for everything, so…I get it. That said, even my tree, William, is a muse. He’s quiet, we don’t talk a lot, and he inspires me.

What works for you? How do you obtain a muse? Is your muse internal or external? How do you keep a muse and how do you lose a muse? Have you ever thought about limerence as it relates to letting a muse twirl around and be lazy and fabulous in your brain? Are your muses people, places, or things? How and when do they strike? It’s all so very a-musing, don’t you think?

©️2023, itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.

Short story · Uncategorized · Writing

When the Lil Peeps Visited

AmyLeave a comment

January 2023

I lead everyone upstairs to the room that used to be my mom’s. It’s a sitting room now, done in shades of champagne pink, with a green and pink floral patterned throw rug, photos hanging on all of the walls, plants, and a few stuffed animals. The door opens, and Big Sis runs in, smiles widely with eyes even wider, “I love this! And this! And this…” she exclaims as she touches the pink office chairs, the pink chaise, and engulfs my large stuffed, Hello Kitty. She struggles to contain it in the cradle of her left arm. She then picks up my smaller stuffed alpaca and shoves it under her other arm.

She remains transfixed by the room’s contents.

A discussion erupts about Aunt Amy’s “slight obsession” with Hello Kitty (it didn’t help I wore a Hello Kitty shirt that day) and Big Sis – now deftly carrying a stuffed animal under each arm – eagerly searches to find each Hello Kitty object in the room, as if playing “Where’s Waldo?”

“There are more downstairs,” I grin.

Later, after we pry Big Sis from the room, we return to the living room, where we continue to chat. Lil Sis notices my battery-powered window candles, and that they are uniquely adorned.

She is petite, she’s barely grown in the three years since I’ve seen her, so she looks up at me, sideways, judgmental even, speaking out of the side of her mouth like some kind of child gangster, with a heavy Valley Girl accent, “There are googly eyes on your candles,” she says with emphasis, as if each word were a complete sentence.

I saw a slight eye roll.

I beamed and said, “Yes!” She slowly shook her head. I continued: “Well, they were wearing sweaters, but I took those off after Christmas.” I looked to her for a response. She stared up at me, dumbfounded. “Sweaters? Oh my gosh.” Full eye roll commenced.

I hid a smirk.

I reflect now on the details of our visit. All three kids have different interactions with me, and much of that is based on how much they remember me. Lil Bro likely remembers little of me and no personal recollection of my mother, the latter of which saddens me a bit. Lil Sis has a memory of me, but it is likely limited, as is her memory of my mother. Big Sis remembers all, and runs to greet me with a huge smile. I think she remembers my mom, and that makes my heart swell. That there is a photo hanging in their home of my mom and me, each of us holding one girl (Lil Sis on Mom’s lap, Big Sis on mine), surprises and touches me. Oh, how my mother would be delighted.

Nearing the end of their visit, I feel my mother’s joy as I relay to the group that no one wants my mom’s piano, and I am having a hard time finding a new home for it. Big Sis’s mom and dad both say they will take it, as Big Sis wants to learn. I could almost hear my piano-teaching mother’s excitement, and I felt gratitude for an old tradition now wrapped in a new chapter.

©️2023, itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.

chick lit · fiction · Love · Nature · prose · Short story · spring · Writing

Bliss

AmyLeave a comment

Bliss. It’s what I would call the feeling I had from the moment I woke, that day we went to that small town, walking up and down the street, looking for the shop that wasn’t there. The wind swept us both like a wide, cold broom aimed high, and we cursed about the damned map. Bliss told me to wear the flowing red top I bought in the kids’ department at Kohl’s because I needed to feel the freedom in the flowing. As we drove around trying to find the miniature golf course, Bliss told me I was on an adventure, that it was time, my old nemesis anxiety would not come knocking that day. Bliss knew.

Bliss led us to play both courses that day. With tempered excitement novelty brings, we curiously looked ahead at the direction of each hole, the layout of the greens, discussing and preparing exactly how to make the shot under par. It worked for me. It didn’t work for you. But you weren’t bothered by it; you had Bliss, too. I eagerly kept score as we made rules for what happens when your ball flies out of the green into the water two holes over (do-over, from the tee), and I blissfully juggled my purse, the scorecard and that little pencil over 41 holes of golf.

Then there was the moment, which passed, just as time did those two weeks, far too quickly. The sun was shining through the tree canopy above, an early spring sun, peeking in and out of the clouds, as we played each hole and I continued to win, my Bliss increasing. It was among these tree shadows where my brain’s camera takes a still and it leaves me at a cliffhanger. You stand in front of me, the sun peeking down on your red-blond hair, in this deserted, tree-covered miniature golf course, smirking at me as you do, sunglasses hiding your eyes, but I can see them when I close mine. We are close, close enough for me to see my own smirk in your glasses. Bliss tells me to kiss you, and I think in that moment, you were expecting it.

A kiss lands. Just to the left of your mouth.

“That’s for losing,” I said cheerfully, trying to evoke Bliss about what I’d done, but feeling as if I’d plotted the wrong point on the map, instantly realizing I should have aimed for the lips and may have missed my chance forever. “Good,” you said with unusual inflection, still smirking, seemingly expecting something else, something more.

When we embraced earlier in the week, soon after you had arrived, Bliss was with me then, and I said quietly, “I’m so glad you’re here.” I meant something else, something more. When you replied just as quietly, “Me, too,” Bliss wants me to believe you meant something else too, something more.

Dedikert til A.

©2023, itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.

Autumn · Fall · Forests · I love trees · Nature · Oak trees · Trees · Uncategorized · Willow oak trees

William, the Majestic Oak

Amy2 Comments

There’s something about me you should know: I love trees. I believe the science that states trees communicate with each other through lengthy and entwined root systems deep underground, as well as through their branches and leaf canopies. Dying trees are fed sugar through their roots from other trees that know of their suffering. The forest is friendship and family.

But William, the towering Willow Oak adjacent to my home, does not live in a forest. Perhaps he started out in one, a hundred years ago, when he was a sapling – and before that, an acorn. But there’s no way to prove it.

As he is now, overseer of my home and its relatively small parcel of land, William has a few local friends. None are larger than he, but they are seemingly not intimated.

Oak trees are formidable, and they live long lives. William is an example of this – and yes, that’s his name, we have conferred. He asked for my name, of course. “It’s Amy,” I said.

Given his proximity to my dining room, health and sturdiness are important factors to know about William. “Great tree.” “Over one hundred years old. I’d love a tree like that on my property.” “Perfectly healthy.” Several tree specialists have said these exact words about my William. I imagine Wills puffing up and shaking his leaves in a show of bravado, but his leaves are eighty feet up and I can’t see what he’s doing with them.

And yes, I’ve decided William is a male. I’ve heard trees can be either/or, and William gives towering male protective vibes. He is over one hundred years old, after all. He’s a galant gentleman.

His trunk must measure fifteen to twenty feet in diameter (see photo above for William compared to the size of my foot). His visible root system grows just touching my house’s foundation – but before you become nervous about that, it just touches. The roots follow the line of the home in a parallel fashion, abutting, but never crossing. His well-established, strong roots running along the foundation of my home appears to be giving it a gentle but Herculean hug. He offers roots for when I feel rootless and ungrounded.

His rough bark reminds me that he is rough on the outside, but alive and doing important tree stuff on the inside. His green leaves of spring are a canopy of hope external (remembering that hope springs eternal), his brown leaves of fall are a yearly consternation to my home’s gutters, and are my shoes’ main nemesis. My welcome mat ignores the leaves completely, unfortunately. His acorns drop from up high, clanking the glass patio table. The acorns are large this year, which my mother always predicted meant a cold, snowy winter. We shall see. The squirrels have already begun to bury the acorns, and, if they remember the locations of burial, they will be well fed this winter.

When the invasive pest English Ivy threatened William’s trunk, I cut it away, furious. When it grew back and multiplied, I had it professionally removed. William seems pleased. He can show off his trunk again.

“It would take two hundred mile per hour winds to take down that tree,” a landscaper recently told me, staring up at William in awe. (He was the person who freed William of the ivy.) Fingers and limbs crossed that never happens. William is well-protected by my home in a sort of symbiotic relationship.

I woke this morning to see William in his usual place, with the sound of acorns dropping now and again. He seems peaceful and ready to get on with the cooler fall weather. He’s already preparing for spring. After visiting William, my mind and then my feet trailed to my front yard, where my surprise Eastern Redbud grows. Her name is Clementine, and she has a magnificent story to tell.

©️2023, itsamyisaid.wordpress.com, All Rights Reserved

Love · poems · Writing

I Dreamt of Him

AmyLeave a comment

A writer needs a muse, and I had a good one. Sometimes I think the inherent non-fictionality of life interrupts the ability to create fiction – at least for me. Life can be overwhelming, amazing, tragic, sacred, wholly unexpected. I feel life’s events deeply and I always have. So I have looked to my old writings for inspiration, and perhaps to remind myself that there was a time when I created things worth reading, that other people enjoyed reading, that I was someone who created ideas, found peace in words, and hope in imagination.

I found one poem in particular that is not fiction, coincidentally, but about a dream I had several years ago. The poem still resonates with me, and I want to share it here. I am a thinker, a dreamer, a moody sarcastic reluctant romantic. I am a writer. I am me. I can be no other.

* * *

Last night I dreamt of him

He was the house I longed to get to

in the middle of shallow, red clay-tinged, gently rippling water

Gray and tan smooth pebbles and jagged tiny stones surrounding it

Standing solidly on a shallow pier that I couldn’t reach

He was the brown shingled home

with a simple frame and construction

cozy and inviting

but surrounded by that shallow clay-colored water on all sides

I circled like an agitated, frightened puppy

whimpering to myself

Standing

alone

exposed

frustrated

bewildered

on some solid ground I could not see

Placing my bare, dirty, cold wet feet on the hard rocks and pebbles

but jerking them back just as quickly

when the rocks shifted

Afraid to step forward but determined not to step away altogether

I got no closer

Fear rose up inside of me as I circled the house

I longed for someone to help me

but the house was empty

As I fought the wave of frustration and panic

a wooden walkway appeared

It was not there before

A simple walkway that led to the front door

and bypassed the rocks and water

I quietly exclaimed relief and pulled my feet from the rocks one last time

I made my way on the walkway

cautiously but quickly

I kept my focus on the wood planks beneath my feet

I saw that there was one simple step up to the door from my walkway

I kept my eye on that step

When I reached that step

my downcast, anxious eyes

stared at my dirty, cold feet

Just as I was about to step up

an open-palmed hand

attached to an outstretched arm

appeared before me

I raised my head

reached for the hand

forgetting my fear

and the dream was over

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