of creativity and stirring muses.

There is so much I can do.  There are just some moods and seasons when my Muse wakes up and all I feel is creativity.  And these days its the best kind, not the desperate excitement about a single project that is expansive and enormous and will probably never be completed satisfactorily, but the quiet sort of bubbling creativity for a million different things from literary to artistic to musical.  Not that the million different projects ever come into being or are completed in one go and to my satisfaction.  But even if one or two result that is enough for me, enough for that season and I can go back to studying and mundanity in peace.

And yet it translates currently more to restlessness than a hankering after physical work.  She’s not really awake – she’s stirring.  I still lack the right kind of impetus.  Maybe I just need the right kind of music.  Which is something that can be very specific.  Such as I can only listen to Massive Attack when playing about with clay.  I really want to make that second goddess.  I can see her in my mind, see my thick clumsy fingers shaping her.  That’s the best sign, of course.  When a project or an idea grows to such startling clarity that you can see it happening, you can see it clearly.  Those ideas work out – those projects are the ones that reach completion.  Ideas are so tentative, so delicate.  So many die on the way.  But the clearest ones don’t, usually.  But you must let them mature to that stage.

Mama had the violin put on stands attached to the large purple wall in my room, the one not covered by bookshelves or broken by the window/desk/door.  Its rich mahogany colouring looks ostentatiously gorgeous against the dark purple…I am more than ever regretful of having given up on it.  I will pick it up again.  Maybe even this month.  In the meantime I admire it and kick myself repeatedly.  I need to paint the stands purple to match the wall.

The best thing is when the Muse starts stirring and I have time to pay attention to her.  Who wants ideas when all you can do is wriggle, frustrated, locked in the circle of books and exams?   They seem such a waste then.  And they never have the same flavour afterwards, as if they were fruit that had slowly rotted over time.  My Muse isn’t a bitch, but she’s jealous and partial, and doesn’t like to be neglected.  Her favours have a best-by date.

There’s a large pyramid, an old plastic chocolate box lying over near the table.  I saved it on a whim when I’d already put it aside in the trash.  It sits there, and I’ve been racking my brains for over a week for what to do with it.  Pyramids are such an exciting shape.  Sitting on its square base it looks mythical, dusty, Egyptian.  Inverted, it looks vase-like, contemporary, funky.  And it invites techiniques – papier-mache, paint, cardboard, clay.  Perhaps I should just stick it onto the wall, projecting its pointed tip into the room like a thumbtack.

The best ideas are original and elegant.  I rarely have that kind.  Mine are usually pretty/weird and inspired from something or the other.  It’s a headache sometimes, because you figure out the source sooner or later, or rack yourself trying to, and when you do nothing feels as good.  Even if it’s a completely different art form, even if its uncommon, or so common that your application of it is unique.  It still doesn’t feel as right.

But then I’ve never felt as completely comfortable in this world.  The art/creative world.  It isn’t mine.  I was never encouraged in it.  I live here flittingly, a stranger to all it entails, a smiling visitor, an amazed, enthralled, admiring tourist.  Even writing, literature, where I linger longest and which is the most familiar to me, is not a homestead.  Yet hesitant, shy, experimental, I keep on trying.  I add my contributions, quiet ones.  I squint about and play.  Most of all, I enjoy myself on these ventures and forays.  I like to create.  It’s fun.

Anyway.  I just hope it doesn’t all fizzle down to nothing over the next few months.

See you soon.

(23-2-2011)