When My Muse Pays Me a Visit…..

Some days, I just want to sit down and write. My muse pays me a visit, and my mind runs rampant with ideas, running every which way, so at the computer I sit, poised, ready to write. And so I begin.

“Briiiiinnnnggggg….Briiiiinnnnggggg!!!” The phone rings. Do I answer, or ignore it?

The phone continues to ring. I answer it. It’s my husband, or one of my children. Will I [......] fill in the blank. It could be anything from taking a tub of petrol to an empty tanked car or an update on the latest major life’s event.

Whatever the reason for their call, in my families eyes, it’s more important than what I’m doing at the time.

After all, Mum can write at any time, can’t she?

WRONG!!!

Not when she’s running after every whim her family dictates to her!

For a person who has never found the urge to write, has no interest in writing and is hard pushed to even pick up a book to read, the act of writing is a non-event to them. A waste of time. Well, if you really must write, do it when I don’t need you!

Unfortunately, my family doesn’t have any interest in writing.

I wonder how other wives and mum’s cope with their desire to write. When their muse pays them a visit, what do they say when the family is demanding attention? “Sorry muse, you’ll have to come back another day”?

Is this how an actor feels, if they live within a non-acting family?

Or an artist living with people who aren’t the least bit interested in art?

Am I the only blogger/writer in the entire world who has this problem?

Please, if you read this and have lived through what I am going through, suggestions on how to re-train my demanding family OR (preferably) how to escape to a deserted island, unnoticed, would be greatly appreciated.

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Reflections on Silence and Time Spent Alone

Enchanted by the distant sounds of nature, intoxicated by the stillness in and around my home, I recall my childhood days of time spent alone, listening to similar silent sounds, immensely aware of the calmness within my home.

My home was my haven, my retreat from the noisy school playground and incessant chatter of some of my friends. Yes, they were my friends. And even at such a tender age, I longed to return to my place of gentleness, to regroup my thoughts, away from the noise their voices made.

While teddy bears were preferred as the chosen friends of most girls back then, my friends were my dolls. Each with their own individual name bestowed upon them at “birth”, they became my tea-party companions. They sat quietly beside me as I read my latest “Enid Blyton” story book, or whilst I knitted them a brand new jumper to wear during the cold winter months living in the Blue Mountains.

My time spent alone was not through choice, rather through necessity. Our isolated home sat amongst the grand total of three homes situated along a long dirt road, within a little known village. In one of the other homes in our street resided a retired couple and in the other, a single woman in her twenties.

I befriended the single woman, Marion, whom I would visit on weekends, when she had time off work. Her tiny Pekinese dog would tolerate my attention for the grand total of, perhaps, five minutes, after which time Marion began to relate her stories to me of her time spent living in Papua New Guinea, or read to me the next chapter of “Alice in Wonderland”.

Wild flowers grew alongside the dirt road. When allowed to go for a walk, I enjoyed picking these dainty little flowers to take home to my mother. During the season when the wild blackberries grew in profusion on their spiky vines at the end of our street, I would collect a dish of them to take home. Mum would make blackberry pie for us, a real treat, and a desert which I felt I had contributed to.

Sure, I did spend the majority of my days alone, and just as surely I never once craved the company of others, as I knew of no other existence than to be alone.

And I was never lonely.

Today, as I reflect on my constant yearning for solitude, living within a home containing six people most of the time, I understand where the desire for silence originated.

(Image from Flickr)

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