The muse has left the building . . .
There are times when its impossible to write even though the intentions are there in the back of your brain. Do it, now, turn the computer on, just write! But it’s the day after Boxing Day, the Sydney to Hobart race fleet is streaming down the Australian east coast and out on our own little bay it has been a corker of a day till mid-afternoon when the nor-easter dragged heavy sea-cloud behind it and the temperature cooled a little. I however, was out early this morning, not long after 7.30, to go kayaking.
Summer at Chinamen's Beach
To be alone on the water, just listening to the wash on the hull, feeling my shoulders whimper (its been a long time between paddles as Christmas approached), was a present to self. Paddled to Louisville and then back right under the coast, squashed hard against the rocks with tiny pretty fish, salmon and mullet flashing silver underneath me. Then back along the Front Beach to home, about an hour on the water, and the whole time I hardly gave my WIP or the current ‘editing’ job any thought.
Did I feel guilty? Nah . . .
Should I? Perhaps . . .
But self-discipline in everything tends to go out the window at this time of year. It’s a time of surfeit: food, wine, gifts, laziness, loss of discipline. I know I’ll get it back, after all there’s lots at stake. Too much not to set a time and date for the muse to return. She’s promised she will and I believe her. She said she just needed a bit of a holiday as well.
Well if your muse has to go back and visit family for the holidays… well with a map and a ruler we can work out the distance from Tasmania to Mount Hellicon. I think she might need a rest when she gets back too!
Damn it! She might too, I hadn’t thought of that. And just when I can here the computer whirring.
Do you think Mt. Hellicon is snow-covered and blizzard-riddled? If so she may find coming back to the beach-shack a pleasant return to work. I promised her I wouldn’t expect her to work all day. There has to be time for a swim, and maybe just lying underneath the willows, ‘musing’. Isn’t that what muses do after all?