Have I ever told you about my muse?

She is a thing of smoke and vapors, giddy and clever, caring not for the clock or food or sleep or restless dogs or dinner dates.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon fussing about in the studio, combing through cabochons, pushing bits and scraps of silver around, driving to the art store and buying a handful of new watercolors.  There was this thing, this idea, this phrase I wanted to bring to tangible life.  I knew the visceral movement of it, the emotional evocation, the balance, the ascetic, the raw feeling of it, but the physical form fleeted just out of reach.

A nebulous, potent idea, like grasping air or balancing water.

Then, after the studio was closed down for the night, after dinner and wine and tea and this ridiculous flourless-chocolate-cake-from-WholeFoods-my-newest-gluttonous-addiction, and teeth brushing and face washing...
After all that, my muse woke up.
(how fabulously, terribly typical)
I was so tired, so physically done, but my mind came alive with color.  In the dark shadows of the bedroom I could see it, translucent and spacial, arcing and sparking.  The essence of idea distilled to form.  I felt that if I could just close tight my eyes and trace those colors with my fingertips, the glowing line left behind would hold the key to unlocking this visceral riddle like a land map to buried treasure.
I laid in bed and debated.  It was cozy under my hive of blankets and the studio was no doubt hovering around 39 degrees.  Sancho was already snoring.  And so I asked her, with a bit of chagrin, if she could please just let me sleep and come back in the morning after coffee.
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