Dear Muse,

Where have you been?

I have been waiting for you to come back to me. For the past six years or so, you haven’t been visiting me as often as you used to. In fact, you’ve all but disappeared. Without you, I am ordinary, as common as the bowl of cereal I have every morning for breakfast.

See? Even my metaphors are stale.

I’ve done all kinds of things to entice you to return: I travelled to Europe, kissed more than my fair share of men, did crazy things my mother would not approve of, deliberately sabotaged my former relationships so I’d have something to write about, posed nude, ran for miles and miles, loved and lost and loved again… and still, you did not come.

What can I do to make you fill me up again? My hands are arthritic, unable to write the words that so easily flowed from me before, my body is weaker, my memory not as sharp or as clear as it used to be.

I’m getting on in my years, darling, and I’m so lonely without you.

I have stories due in two weeks. These stories have to matter, have to be brilliant and explosive, or else I will lose the respect of my seniors (if I ever had it in the first place).

I have commissioned writing projects up to my neck.

I am part of a group that supposedly advocates healing through art.

I’m a complete fraud. What am I doing with myself?

I read books. I dance to the music only I can hear in my head. I make love. I make paella. I go to meetings. I torture my body in the gym. I wake up in the middle of the night from the pain in my hands, then go back to dream dreams where I have the power to stop time and to make things move.

I feel terribly self-indulgent. Help me. Wake me from this stupor.

More than ever, I need you to come back to me.

I’ll keep the porch light on. You know where I keep the key.

Your devoted slave,

Ginny