tl;dr!? In this high time of vacation, I’m dropping this de scription of my Muse. She’s been with me since childhood and I’m grateful and surprised She’s still here. Enjoy!

Or not.

‘de’ a preposition meaning from; of – used in French, Spanish, and Portuguese personal names, originally to indicate place of origin

‘scription‘ a noun meaning (2.) style of handwriting

de Muse

My Muse. She sits in a small chair in the corner. She has been my constant companion since 2nd grade when I said the words “I want to be a writer” out loud. Laughing with a classmate that an ‘a’ and an ‘o’ mark the difference between ‘bath’ and ‘both’ and I knew I loved English, I loved language. ‘Bath’ can be ‘both’ and ‘both’ can be ‘bath,’ letters make words all pressed down, smashed together, and overflowing. She showed up then for the fun.

My muse. So patient through the years and years into decades. In college, an English professor told me an English degree might not give me subject matter to write about. I like to think the good doctor was first doing no harm, telling me to protect Her, my Muse — an English degree could kill Her. But oh, and this is harsh, maybe my professor signaled me subtly and kindly that I wasn’t that good. Regardless, I took her advice. I majored with a BS long before it was STEMmed and oh, what a terrific BS! The stories She can tell. The science She knows. And through it all She has waited and waded with me – a marriage misstep, a beautiful child, an incredibly interesting yet somehow soul-sucking career – the all of it. My Muse. Patiently waiting Her turn.

And today? Today She sits in the corner wearing white leather Keds sneakers, lacey anklets, flowered pedal-pushers, a pink t-shirt, and a white lace headband with a big bow to hold back all that wild hair. And it would be a really cute outfit if it weren’t for the leg-irons, handcuffs, and duct tape.

And on the days I set her free for a little while? Let her roam? She fills the page– paper or screen – screaming across and down with the speed of a Billy Idol rebel yell — more, moRE, MORE! She dances, twirls, whirls in a blurry hurricane, Her figurative coffee-shop caffeine running strong. She can whisper, She can scream, She can mumble, She can shout, She can spit out wildly imaginative phrases like nobody’s business. She can smash two nouns into a complete sentence or crush adjectives into nouns, clean as a bath or both and we are all in. She loves English. She loves language. She twists it like a pretzel, sprinkles on some salt. She explores story but She’s not crazy about punctuation. And I forgive Her that. She is still here. She writes, I read. She lets me know what I think and maybe this is truth. She is here for me and me only. It is sufficient. She is enough.

I put my pen down, close the laptop while She returns to her corner, puts the duct tape over her mouth, steps into the leg-irons and clips the handcuffs in place like major silver bracelets. She takes her seat. She didn’t walk out the door when She had the chance.

After all, She is Me.

And my secret? I whisper to her like I always do, “Tomorrow. We’ll give it a go. I promise.“

Tomorrow.

-Viva Escritora, July 2019