my muse

Speaking of bathes and creative inspiration, most of my creative
thinking is done in the bathtub, or happens to strike during the night.
Like I mentioned earlier this week, I keep a tablet and pencil on my
nightstand for any sleepy inspirations I might need to scribble down
in the dark.

Lately, in my delicious tub soaks, I've noticed a silhouette in the wax
of my candle. I know, I know, you're thinking I've been soaking a tad
too long. No, she's not the Virgin Mary, but, I like to think of her as
my muse, perhaps the spirit of a Cherokee fore mother there to
comfort and inspire me. She kinda looks like Whoopi Goldberg, too.


Anyway, last night, I was revisiting Ken Burn's The Civil War, and
the charming Shelby Foote was telling about the circumstances of
Julia Ward Howe's (she was a huge activist for women's suffrage, by
the way) inspiration to pen the famous words to "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic."

Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembers, "I went to bed that
night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I
awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for
the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine
themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to
myself, I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep
again and forget them. So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed,
and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered
to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without
looking at the paper."

So, always listen to your muse. And keep a pen and paper handy.