The Visitor

I'm not waiting on the muse. I think I've identified the muse, and the muse isn't something to wait on. I'm pretty sure "muse" isn't passive.

That's not to say that I don't believe that inspiration can't often follow something akin to meditation. It might. But to that point, I'm pretty sure that meditation isn't passive either.

But when I'm tied to the dock of Inertia, the muse is simply the one who knows how to undo those vexing knots in the mooring ropes.

When I'm anchored by procrastination, the muse is recognizing that anchor and weighing it. This is no time to heave to.

Starting is more than half done.

Mostly, the muse is the guy who drives the R&L truck that delivers my clay.

So, no, I'm not inviting the muse. Ultimately, R&L truck driver or second mate metaphor notwithstanding, I'm thinking that I am the muse.

What I am inviting, though, is the Visitor. I'm inviting that "third" who so often shows up, surprising me when I thought it was just me and the clay at the wheel.

The Visitor is the third who shows up when I thought it was just me and my keypad typing away at rhymes.

The Visitor is the third who shows up when I thought it was just me and my guitar.

The Visitor is (I think, anyway) why creative people continue to create.

I'm a real world kinda potter. That is, I've always made my living from clay. When push comes to shove, relative to the formulation of Muse/Visitor I've suggested above, survival has always been muse enough for me. If I don't weigh anchor and get sailing, I don't survive. There is no safe harbor. I can't wait on inspiration. I can't afford romantic notions of transcendent illumination.

And because potters like me have that survival motivation to be makers, we more often get to meet the Visitor. After all, if the Visitor only comes when bidden by productivity, the most productive are going to meet the Visitor the most often.

But correlation doesn't equal causation.

And there are obligate creators in this world. They seem to not require the push of the muse. Once they've met the Visitor, they go back to meet the Visitor again and again and again.

And the Visitor is why the poet goes back and reads what he wrote before. He's still startled by the presence of the Visitor. He wants to relive the pleasure.

The Visitor surprises the songwriter at every reprise.

The Visitor is why the potter unloads the kiln, smiles as he meets each piece as if for the first time. He walks away from the kiln, only to pirouette and return to the kiln for yet another look.