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A presenter at a creativity workshop I attended described her muse with a word that would have been bleeped if she’d said it on television. I was stunned. Not about the word. I’ve heard it before. I may have even said it before.
No, I was shocked that she’d speak about her muse that way and still expect it to come back. But she said her source of inspiration is spoiled and has to be reminded who’s boss.
Another presenter described her muse more kindly. She said hers was like a beautiful angel. Mine isn’t nearly that elegant. I think of my muse as sort of an elf in my attic. She’s playful, mischievous and a little unreliable. And taking good care of her is important because I’m not only an author, I’m a columnist with regular deadlines. I can’t afford to run out of ideas.
I think we all have a muse of some sort, whatever type of work we do. We’re driving somewhere or dozing off at night and suddenly we have a brilliant idea for a poem or a new casserole or an invention that will not only fold our laundry but put it away too. The muse has just visited. And it’s so magical that we wish our elf or angel or BLEEPED would come bearing gifts more often. Unfortunately, we can’t just snap our fingers and get them to show up. But I do think there are things we can do to encourage them.
For one thing, while my elf only comes down from the attic when she’s darn good and ready to, she expects me to work every day whether I’m feeling inspired or not. She won’t just waltz in with a good idea if I sit on the couch eating corn chips and watching Monk reruns all day. I know. I’ve tried that.
And she doesn’t want to be around me when I’m tired and grumpy either. I can’t blame her for that. Nobody else does either.
But I think everyone’s muse is like that. They’re more likely to bring us ideas when we’re well rested, but they still get a kick out of stopping by just as we’re dozing off. Then we have to fumble for a pen and paper or our phone to write down the brilliant idea they brought us. And when our spouse complains, we mumble something about elves or angels or worse and then they’re as inspired as we are. Not really.
But we do have to make a note of the big ideas when our muse brings them, which she does at the most inconvenient times—when we’re showering, having our teeth cleaned or rappelling off a cliff. She expects us to stop whatever we’re doing and make a note. And if we don’t, she takes the idea away and it’s gone, maybe forever. That explains why there still isn’t a gizmo that will fold and put away our laundry.
Sometimes I wonder if our muses may even give their big ideas to someone else if we ignore them. Or worse, maybe they stop visiting altogether if we snub them too often. We have to welcome them, let them in every time they knock. We need to keep a notebook by the bed, in our purse and in our shower. No maybe not there.
Sometimes I make a note in my phone, but I used the notebook I carry in my purse the strangest time my muse showed up. I was parked by the side of the road, not because the muse had arrived while I’d been driving but because I’d been pulled over by a highway patrolman.. An idea came to me as I was waiting for him to come back from checking my outstanding warrants or whatever they do back there. I didn’t have any, by the way.
Anyway, while I was waiting I had the brilliant idea to write a column about being stopped for speeding. Thank you elf! I took out my notebook and started jotting down every memory I had of being pulled over. I had…several. I didn’t even notice the patrolman when he came back to my car. When I finally looked up, he was standing by my window looking at me strangely. I guess he couldn’t see the elf sitting in my passenger seat.
Christmas comes but once a year; chaos never ends! Happy Halloween, merry Christmas and joyful Lumpy Rug Day. That’s real, by the way. Lumpy Rug Day is celebrated every May 3, though “celebrated” might be too strong a word. It’s the American way to create a celebration for everything, then turn it into a chore or worse, a nightmare. ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is a collection of humorous essays about how we let our expectations steal the joy out of Christmas and other holidays and special events. It’s understanding for those who think Christmas form letters can be honest—or they can be interesting. And it’s empathy for anyone who’s ever gotten poison ivy during Nude Recreation Week or eaten all their Halloween candy and had to hand out instant oatmeal packets to their trick-or-treaters.
Enjoy an Excerpt
from the essay “Merry Christmas from the Envyofall Family”
There are two things that make me feel like a boring person. Actually there are more than two, but the ones that come to mind this time of year are writing a Christmas letter and reading everyone else’s.
When I write a letter I come to the painful realization that the year has flown by and I’ve been terribly busy but I haven’t done a thing worth mentioning. Worse, when I read all the newsy holiday letters I receive I think the writers must have had more days since last Christmas than I had, and apparently more money, energy and ambition as well.
I don’t think I’m alone in my feelings of inadequacy either. Consider the following actual letter I made up. You’ll see in brackets what an unfortunate reader might be thinking as she reads this holiday greeting from the Envyofall family.
Merry Christmas from the Envyofalls!
We hope your year was as wonderful as ours was! [I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.] We started the year with a January vacation in Hawaii. [Now I know it wasn’t.] Since the children are both doing so well in school we decided taking them out for two weeks would be acceptable, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. [I’ll bet their teachers did too.]
In June Maxwell and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary with a month in Italy. [What a coincidence! My husband and I celebrated our anniversary in June too—at the Olive Garden.] You can see photos of both vacations on our family website. [You can see our vacation photos too—if my phone is working.]
About the Author 
Dorothy Rosby is an author humor columnist whose work regularly appears in publications throughout the West and Midwest. Her humor writing has been recognized by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the National Federation of Press Women and the South Dakota Newspaper Association. In 2022 she was named the global winner in the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition in the humor writing category. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays.
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