![]() You’ll know what works when it helps you start writing. Even dry and sardonic might work, every muse has its own personality and its own moods. There are lots of ways to do an invocation to the muse. One could be solemn and sacred, lighthearted and fun. (Experience teaches that yelling, screaming, and cajoling is counterproductive) The first invocation to the muse I ever used was Shel Silverstein’s “Come In.” (It’s in the list below). It offers my creativity some quiet, safety, and a sense of warmth before I dive into my writing. An invocation to the muse is one way to sprinkle some kibble on my porch for it. I’ll say it was alright, and I’ll have written nothing.An invocation to the muse is a welcome mat for creativity. My creativity tends to act like a feral cat I’m trying to befriend. It has to be offered some kibble to make it feel safe, to have any hope of it purring happily by me as I work at my desk. Olive will come back soon, probably, and she’ll ask me how my night has been. I pluck an open B string and let it ring. I still write the same dumb lyrics about wine-drunk phone calls and I realize this is the only muse I can invoke. I took some poetry classes thinking they would help me with songwriting, but they didn’t give me inspiration to write about anything grand or existential or even subtly poetic, like changing leaves or dust collecting on childhood bookshelves. I think about Homer, how at the beginning of his epics, he opened with the invocation of the muse. The scene replays in my mind as my fingers run over the six strings, strumming a slow major seventh chord, going nowhere and meaning nothing. Then you started ranting about how your laptop could never compare to the weight of a physical book in your hands, and as you waxed poetic about weathered pages and cracked spines I laughed and laughed and thought you were going to cry. I told you to go to sleep and not stand on your bed and that you could find it online if you really wanted. Do you remember how you called me once? Your dorm was a block away and you asked me if I’d bring you my copy of The Tempest because you knew I was reading it for class and you wanted to recite Prospero’s final soliloquy while standing on your bed and you were sad you didn’t know it from memory. ![]() Not frat-party drunk, that’s below you (you’d say), more like bottle-of-wine-in-bed-while-watching-a-Russian-film-with-subtitles sort of drunk. And that line happens to exclude a whole lot of things when one sip of hard seltzer is enough to shatter me. I simply draw the line at things I’ve never done before that have a high probability of ending in embarrassment. It’s not that I don’t want to do anything I go to extracurriculars and to lunches at the mall and to see musicals at the community theatre. Well, maybe not respects, but she lets it be. But by now I think she understands and respects the fact that I don’t want to do anything. When we first became friends, Olive used to tell me I was no fun, because truth be told, I am, and that means something coming from a girl whose idea of fun involves discussing the politics of the steel industry. I convinced her I was fine while my mind told me I was asphyxiating and ended up sitting on the sticky floor of a locked bathroom stall with a damp cloth on my forehead, counting the seconds between breaths as drops of cold water trickled down my face. ![]() The one time I tried alcohol, the first weekend of freshman year, I had a panic attack and my roommate almost called 911. Still, I enjoy the discussion when I can, though I never drink wine. When I mentioned once that I read Northanger Abbey, it piqued their interest, but I haven’t read anything else, not even Pride and Prejudice, and so I get left out of the conversation when it inevitably shifts to their unanimously elected, favorite author. It’s not like she’s going to some wild Saturday rager she’s going to sip Chardonnay and talk about Jane Austen with a couple of girls from the debate team. She invited me, but I said no, to no surprise, and she told me to have a good night as she left with her purse and sensible flats. It’s far too late for me to be lying on my back with my guitar in my lap and thinking about Homer.
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