GloucesterTimes.com, Gloucester, MA

I have an artist friend who says we are souls just going through our "body" stage.

With a wry smile, but only somewhat in jest, he says that those who will truly appreciate and recognize his talent have yet to be born into bodies; he reaches beyond what is at hand and calls the collective spirit of these unborn souls his Muse.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "muse" as any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus each of whom presided over a different art or science. I like to capitalize the "Muse," elevating it to the status of a guiding spirit, the source of inspiration to a poet, an artist, a thinker, a dreamer.

The Muse, it seems, cannot be forced. One must stand at the ready for its appearance and be open to receive it when it shows itself. Sometimes, a little pressure encourages the Muse to respond, just as a dream might be encouraged to fill your subconscious if you prepare a space for it. "Come to me, please come to me." This is what you must say; you must offer an invitation to your mind to dream.

I learned a very effective strategy once, at a dream workshop. If you leave your pen lying on a blank page of your dream journal on a table next to your bed and fall into sleep waiting for dreams to come, they usually will, and you will remember them, too, if you record them immediately as you wake.

The Muse, when it arrives, takes on an energy of its own. I suspect that it is less a magical descent than simply a sharpening of one's own imagination. How many times have I teetered on the threshold of a writing deadline, poised to launch my thoughts, when I must call upon a Muse to pull up the anchor that keeps them from me? It's then that I shake up my thoughts, jumble them around like cubes in a Boggle game.

I stir my potion to the left instead of the right; I improvise my recipe of words by changing the spices. Sometimes, if I am lucky, something brilliant will pop up. More often, though, there appear detailed images, bits of conversation I have remembered.

As I sit in a restaurant booth facing the wall, I hear three women behind me discussing nail care. "If you don't apply the base coat, you're not going to get anywhere," one of them warns. "It's the base coat that's going to take you where you want to go. After that, you have to brush the nail tips with your color, let them dry, then apply two complete coats of color. If you expect really good results, leave a good hour of drying between coats."

I can scarcely believe what I'm hearing. I want their conversation to get out of the way of my Muse! I want to backspace so that my Muse can move in with some rich material, perhaps even something profound, but the inane conversation behind me is distracting, pummels my thought process. "You leave an hour in between coats? I don't do that. A whole hour, huh?" I sense my Muse peeking around a corner, laughing at me as I am caught in the crossfire of nail enamel protocol. My brow wrinkles to imagine that if the woman behind me requires an hour of drying after each application of nail polish, then it must take her three hours to "do" her nails before she gets on with her life. Or maybe, that is her life.

Unintentionally I examine my own nails. Occasionally I do polish them, and my efforts rarely last more than 36 hours (perhaps because I don't apply three coats). Only once in my life did I go to a manicurist, having received a gift certificate. The most memorable part of the experience was leafing through a Vietnamese-English dictionary on top of a pile of fashion magazines as I waited my turn.

More than one coat of varnish was applied, but I don't recall if there were three. The following day, the polish chipped off as I was potting geraniums.

This confirmed my suspicion that I was not a person suited to nail grooming, although I did appreciate its effect on other women's hands. Irritated, I rubbed my nails with polish remover. Now my head aches from the conversation behind me. I press my palms on the seat of my booth and sit on my fingers.

I close my eyes, and wish my Muse would arrive. But only my sliced tomato and mozzarella salad arrive. I admire the juicy, sharp cuts of tomato alternated with plump slabs of mozzarella cheese, and the fresh basil leaves curl gracefully up toward me. Drizzled over the whole creation is virgin olive oil. This is a beautiful sight, I think, smiling a satisfied smile.

"Well, go with it," my Muse whispers, over my shoulder. "Sometimes, my dear, you must go with whatever is there for you. Don't go ruining it, judging its importance." I carefully cut and assemble a piece of tomato, an edge of cheese, and two basil leaves on my fork, bring it slowly to my mouth, and pop it in. The taste buds on my tongue writhe in the pleasure of it.

My Muse dances above me, giggling. "There you go! Your perfect inspiration."



Susan S. Emerson is a Times columnist.