A writer’s muse is an odd thing. We always refer to our muse in the masculine or feminine. I have been calling mine by a different name — “absent.” My muse decided to go on vacation during my move and is frolicking in a location I would choose, so I am sure she is somewhere tropical, being served drinks by smoking hot cabana boys with silly umbrellas and more rum than necessary.
My muse is a lush. This is the only obvious reason for her not being here. She is wasting away in some form of rum soaked, Jimmy Buffet sea salt coconut colada, complete with requisite tanned, oily limbs and extra highlights in her hair.
I hate her. Admit it, you hate her too.
So tonight, I am writing here to see if it create a little mojo. What is mojo? Well, it is defined as a “a magic charm, talisman, or spell.” I was given this idea while on the way home today, driving down I-85, sunroof and windows open while “L.A. Woman” by The Doors was cranked to an unacceptable level.
Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow”
And as I sit here, with Jim’s voice in the back of my head, I think about when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I’m almost certain it was 1988 and I was in Paris, at Jim Morrison’s grave at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. I was 15 and had been wandering the cemetery for hours, passing the graves of Barbusse, Colette, de Musset, George Sand, Molière, and Oscar Wilde. (I’m quite sad I didn’t take the chance to kiss Wilde’s grave while wearing red lipstick.)
Mr. Mojo Risin’, Mr. Mojo Risin’
Mr. Mojo Risin’, Mr. Mojo Risin’
Got to keep on risin'”
Is this helping call my muse home? That I cannot tell you. What it is doing is reminding me of when I young, without any fear, searching for Jim’s grave and making a profound decision that I chose not to act upon until 2002. Jim the masterful poet, rock star, and pretty boy, who would die more than a year before I was born.
Like Mr. Mojo Risin’, I’ve got to keep on risin’. But it also means I have to write, whether my muse is here or not. She can have her sunny escape, I’ll take the dark, seedy underbelly and find my way back into the City of Light — my writing.
Image courtesy of: Atel301 (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons