Not wanting to get up from the warmth and love that surrounded me, I tried to repeat the words, the verse sounded again and again in my head. I thought I should get up and write this down. This is great! What if I just reach over and grab my iPod and start a note? But I know the light and the tapping would wake her, as she slowly breathed and dreamed beside me.
So I promised myself, first thing, I would race to my computer, or grab a pen and pad of paper and write down this fantastic rhyme. Only, morning came and the sun rose and I got out of bed and those words? They were nowhere to be found. I scoured every crease in my brain. I flipped over every cell. Then I checked Brocca's area, the space in our left temporal lobe that is thought to play a role in our ability to speak. Nothing. Finally I looked in Wernicke's area, that area right above my left ear, probably the same ear into which that muse whispered. But again, there was nothing.
Those words had vanished as quickly as they had appeared. I clutched in the darkness of my mind to grab hold of what once was. They had slipped away. A sadness came over me. Not a deep, dark, melancholy but a feeling of missed opportunity. As though I had run to catch the bus only to see it pull away from the curb. But I knew that another bus would be along shortly and I was now at the bus stop and ready to get on and take a ride.
A lesson had been learned. When writing, 'doing the work' as Martin Eden called it, we must always be ready to put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard. Get those words out. Out damn Spot! Out!
Be ready to hear those whispered words. That muse, the thought, those words that come from some unknown source and are there, waiting to be born from the tip of your pen, the stroke of a key. Give them life. Be ready to let them breath. Be ready to hear.
Listen.
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