I pick up the little alarm clock at my bedside and squint at the face. 2:47 a.m.
Hmm, I guess I’ll take a peak outside before I wake my husband, who slumbers gently beside me. It’s the week of the Perseid meteor showers. We’ve both promised to wake each other, so that we can view the “shooting stars” together. As I stumble my way in the dark to the backdoor I think, “If it’s cloudy again, there’s really no point in waking...” I spot what looks like a person leaning against the kitchen counter and I freeze.
I think I see the figure’s head bob. “Yo, ‘s up?”
I recognize the female voice.
“Geez, you scared the freaking daylights outta me!!” She doesn’t respond. She just leans there immobile against the counter. I move closer. Her right hand covers her mouth. Her right elbow rests on her left arm which is snug against her torso. While I don’t excel at much, I am good at voice recognition. “Well, where have you been?” I ask her. Again, no response.
Closer still, I see that she’s biting a fingernail on her right hand. Not a good sign. And, she’s staring directly at me, in that way she has of peering into my psyche. Her head is slightly downcast, but her eyes remain focussed on me. It reminds me of a person peering over their reading glasses. Her brow is furrowed, and except for the corner of her mouth nibbling on the edge of her fingernail, she’s not moving. She finally takes her hand away from her mouth and scratches the top of her head.
It’s then I notice that my writing journal is wedged under her left armpit. She must notice my eye-shift, because she grabs the journal and tosses it down on the floor, right at my feet.
“You repulse me!” she spews.
“Yeah well, um, uh...”
She says not a word, so I continue my whiny stutter, “Well, see, um, we haven’t had any measurable rain since late June...”
“Are you kidding me!? Seriously, are you kidding me? Measurable rain! What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
“Um, well, you know, summer is so fleeting and so when it’s not raining, I, uh, we like to, um, take advantage... uh, I mean, we don’t want to miss an opportunity... there’re a lot of things...”
“If you say golf, I swear, I’m going to smack you.”
“Well, yeah golf is among the many different activities...”
Her open palm stops just short of my cheek. “Stop!” she says. Then softer, “Please, just stop.”
We just stand there for a while, me looking down at my journal which lays on the floor near my feet.
She continues softly, “All I asked was that you write a few hundred words a day. Did I say those words must be of publishable quality? No, I did not. I merely asked for words, some words, any words. Did I say it had to be any particular subject? No, I did not. You like to cook. Write about food. Heck, just a note or thought jotted on a napkin would suffice, but you couldn’t even manage that.”
“I know, I know... “ I try a counter-offensive. I look her in the eye, “Back to my question, ‘Where have you been?’ “
We stay there momentarily, in our stand-off. Then she throws her head back and laughs, “You are a piece. You do know you’re not my only client, right? I took a break from you, a vacation, if you will, well-merited I might add.”
I have had a bunch of inspirations in my head since I saw her last, but honestly no time to pen those words. There are places to discover, there are experiences to experience, there are people to meet, there is life to live...
I swear she can read my mind, because she says, “So, why didn’t you write about those discoveries, those experiences, some descriptions of those people and all that life-living?”
And I’m at a loss, because I know she’s right. But at least, I’ve been praying for rain, and not just because the farmlands around us need it, but because a rainy day is the perfect excuse to sit back and write. But, we’ve had guests coming, and I joined that golf league, and that means I need to practice. And then there’s yoga, meditation, running/walking, gardening, cooking, cleaning, socializing...
“At least tell me you’ve read the books I recommended.”
“Well, I started Hulme’s The Bone People. And yeah, you’re right she’s got a great poetic freestyle, but all that physical violence was too much...”
“How about Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native?”
I shake my head, as I try to recall if she told me that one was to study imagery.
“Trollope’s Orley Farm?”
Another shake. Was that for character development? I’m not sure any more.
“Gulliver’s Travels?”
Satire, I think. “No. No, but I did get the books. It’s just that...”
She sighs, so that I can see her chest heave. She smiles as she steps over my journal.
“Come on, you knucklehead. Let’s go watch the Perseids. Just the two of us. We don’t need to wake Ferdy,”
“You mean Freddy.”
“Yeah, whatever. Oh, and by the way, may I say that the leftover lobster risotto, was divine? I polished it off. Hope you don’t mind, but I was famished. And the sweet corn ice cream with the raspberry sauce? Simply inspired.”
We give ourselves a quick spritz of Dettol to keep the mosquitos at bay and go out on the deck. We lie back in the lounge chairs and watch and wait.
I wake up just before dawn. The sky over the horizon is lightening to a dusky dark steel color, just beyond the tall grass. My muse is gone, but I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll be back. If I can’t bait her with my writing talent, perhaps my cooking can lure her back.
I go back inside and crawl into bed.
Fred rolls over and sleepily murmurs, “Any meteors?”
“Not a one,” I lie. He smiles and immediately falls asleep.
As I begin to doze, I wonder if she’ll be back for Labor Day. Maybe, we can smoke a brisket, Kansas-style. As I recall, she loved that. And maybe some macarons? She goes nuts for those. But, I worry how she’s going to take the news that I signed up for the Fall bowling league.
