“if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.”

One of my English students, a kindly middle-aged man who shares equal enthusiasm for Coltrane and capocollo, just introduced me to Charles Bukowski’s poem “so you want to be a writer?” He wanted to make sure the grammar was right, and I stumbled over my tongue a few times before answering yes. What I really wanted to answer was Grammar has nothing to do with it.

I well know the feeling of rushing to find a scrap of paper with which to mop up a sudden spill of words. That experience of diving head-first into creativity is why I created this blog. It’s why I started a book, why I spend dreary mornings curled over my keyboard for warmth, and also why I haven’t written lately. There has been no word spill on aisle five in a while. I keep sitting down at my desk to wring creativity from my brain drop by drop, but the results evaporate before I can compile them into something meaningful.

It sucks.

A few lines down in his poem, Bukowski continues,
“if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it”

…and I wonder if that’s the problem, if trying to sound like somebody else has been plugging my word-leaks before they have a chance to become glorious waterworks. Each time I’ve sat down to write over the last several days, I’ve had to contend with the taskmaster’s voice prodding me to whip out new content (and make it snappy!), the inferiority complex reminding me that I don’t have half the natural talent of my favorite authors, and the drone of despair convincing me that even if I had their ability, I still wouldn’t have anything to say…  and if emerging from that clamor unscathed isn’t hard work, I don’t know what is.

While I could certainly power through the noise and post something (first-edition grocery list, anyone? or perhaps a treatise on toothpaste flavors?), it would have all the authenticity of a vegan cheeseburger, and I wouldn’t end the day feeling any more artistic accomplishment than I do on days when I eke out three sentences and give up.

What I wanted to say to my English student is that the poem has nothing to do with grammar and everything to do with unplugged leaks, a torrential mess best sopped up with a blank page. However, Bukowski already said it best, so I let the student discover its meaning for himself while I cling to the last stanza like a life preserver, trusting that the sea will follow.

“when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.”

“Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?”
~ Wm. Shakespeare

I was late the day they assigned muses. By the time I rushed in, damp hair undermining any credibility to my car trouble story, Mrs. Butterworth and Lemony Snicket were already taken. So were the Woset in my Closet, the world’s hottest chili pepper, and Frida Kahlo’s eyebrow… and despite my hopeful nods toward the corner where Mr. Darcy sat brooding, I ended up with Tinkerbell’s hormonal older sister Orlagh.

Like all fairy folk, Orlagh is drawn to sunbeams and jewel tones, sugar crystals and laughing water, words that twist and melt and sparkle on the tongue; however, neither her name nor her thyroid is doing her any favors. She gets overwhelmed easily. Weeks strung along with gray days send her into a sulk. She tends to get bogged down in jealousy when she should be inspired, and she is endlessly worried over which color petals go with her skin tone (periwinkle makes her face look puffy, buttercup washes her out).

She refuses to show up without caffeine, no matter how many times I reminder her it’s an unhealthy habit. She won’t come in to work on the weekends, and she often decides she needs a few hours of beauty sleep just as I’m sitting down to meet with her. She abandons perfectly delicious sentences to moon over Peter Pan. Head colds and out-of-town guests provide equal rationale for her to jet off to Maui without so much as an “aloha!” and when she returns—sometimes weeks later—her telltale tan fades more quickly than her reluctance.

However, beneath all its moody layers, Orlagh’s heart is deep and lovely. Many of my happiest hours have been spent creating with her, brainstorming in whispers and coaxing letters into life. When I have time (and adequate caffeine in my system) and her hormones have a temporary foothold, we work so well together that it’s more like playing. I like her. All except for the jet-setting and flaky work ethic and downward emotional spirals. And that awful name. But besides that, I really have grown fond of my muse.

So if you’re reading this, Orlagh, I’d love for you to come on home now. No combination of seasonal sicknesses and dead cars and weepy two-year-olds and allergy immunotherapy treatments and unfortunate bedtimes is enough to make me stop wanting you around. In fact, I’m craving another of our morning-long creative sessions. I miss you, and I promise not to say anything about your extended absence if you bring me back a piña colada and maybe a cluster of freshwater pearls. (Tiny ones, in graduated shades of orange and brown. Strung on silk. With a silver pendant.)

“Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.”
~ Wm. Shakespeare

“And if thou canst thy fickleness outgrow
Or thy vacations halt, I shall, methinks,
Back to the reassignment center go
And hire as my new muse Jar Jar Binks.”
~ Me