The Inconvenient Muse

I seem to be an expert at bad timing. This is nothing new. Urges to clean and sort at midnight, errands tacked on to other errands even though there wasn't time for the first, let alone more.
And now, of all improbable things, I've got a muse nattering away in my head. All hours of the day (and night). In the very midst of mothering, cleaning, sorting, and home improvement projects- suddenly bits and pieces of story ideas are attaching themselves to my brain. Laundry sorting musings, driving daydreams, shower ruminations. It's like having a board meeting running as background noise in my head. People keep stopping in the middle of sentences to say "What? What are you staring at?". And then I need to reign in my galloping brain and tell them quite honestly I was just lost in thought. I mean, lost in thought is hardly a new thing for me. But now the thoughts are less my usual philosophical musings and more, well - scenes. Sort of like trying to watch TV while someone is channel surfing. A scene here, a character there - a plot line, a bit of conversation.

Great, right? New career, yes? Except for 2 small problems: finding the time to write at the time the idea hits, and (the larger hurdle) - I have zilch clue how to write fiction. I think the last time I wrote something that wasn't a report, essay, letter, or devotional was sometime back in high school, maybe even grade school. Okay, I fib. I've written a few clown skits for various church functions, VBS and the like.

So, being the (usually) practical sort I figure my brain is just giving me an amusing good-for-something-someday diversion and proceed to ignore it.

Uh huh. The Muse is kind of like royalty. "We do not like being ignored. We will show you what happens to those who ignore Us."

And then the dreams started. Full MGM technicolor, many with whole stories of their own. I started writing them down, thinking perhaps they were simply the result of my ongoing spiritual adventures. Just the result of cleaning out spiritual closets (says I).

So now, with school out, and our re-do-the-kitchen-floor project turning my schedule inside out, several very surreal nights of insomnia have shown me the truth of the matter.

The Muse is persistant.

One way or another, my brain *will* work overtime - if it's not on my story ideas, then it will take whatever fodder it finds. I nearly worried myself into a panic attack this week over something pretty silly. All because I've been telling myself that I don't have the time/ knowledge/ ability to write fiction, and so my whirling mind spun its own dark fantasies.

Makes me wonder if Mozart went around plagued by melodies, if his own characters stalked Shakespeare in his sleep. Maybe Van Gogh went mad because the world was awash in color and he couldn't paint fast enough to get the colors out of his head.

So, I guess I'll be finding time to scribble down my odd bits of stories, even if at this point they don't even make sense to me.

It would appear that the Muse deems it necessary to both my sleep and my sanity.

The scientist in me is going crazy

This is the cherry tree in front of our house. I've watched it bloom for 7 springs. Last year, because my daughter thought it was so pretty, I took a picture of it (the top picture). It has always had the gorgeous pale pinkish-white flowers with pink centers so characteristic of the famous cherry trees in the DC area. Charlotte always thought it was funny when they started falling off because they looked so much like a spring snow.

This year, when the cherry blossoms came out, we got a surprise. For the first time in the 8 years we've lived in this house, our cherry tree produced pink blossoms. At first I thought I was just remembering them wrong. You know, mommy mind, too many things to keep track of, surely I'm imagining it. Well, I took a picture. And compared it to last year's picture (which I'd saved in hopes of printing it out for Charlotte). I compared the two side by side. See for yourself. They're not just a shade or two different. Last year they were *white* and this year they are *pink* - really, really pink. I knew that hydrangeas flowers could change color in response the different pH of soils - and I've seen some that were multi-colored on the same bush. But I didn't know cherry trees (or any flowering tree for that matter) could do this. And do it so dramatically.

The scientist in me is going nuts trying to figure out how this is possible. I guess it must have something to do with the non-winter we had in the Mid Atlantic of the US this year. We had almost no snow, or ice, and it never got really cold that it stayed. And I know the sun is at the peak of its 11 year cycle, with all the attendant solar storms and such. But please, if there's an armchair horticulturist out there - somebody please explain this odd phenomenon to me.

Meanwhile, I've got the only chameleon tree on the block...

My life has become an algebra problem

You remember those word problems with all the conditions and you had to figure out the equation before you could solve for "x"? The ones like, if a train leaves Boston at 8AM traveling west at 30mph and another leaves Chicago at 9AM traveling east at 50mph how long will it take before they pass each other and in what city? Yeah.... *those* problems - grrrrr, they drove me crazy, from 6th grade on.

Now it seems some days my life has become one. Check this out:

- Christopher's bus arrives at 7:40AM and his school starts at 8:00.
- Charlotte's bus arrives anywhere between 8:15 and 8:25 and her school starts at 8:45.
- Connor's bus should arrive around 8:00, but he can't take the bus in the morning because it makes him carsick.
- Connor's school (in the same district) starts at 8:40.
- It takes 10-15 minutes to drive from our house to Connor's school.
- It takes 3 minutes to drive to Charlotte's school.
- Connor can't be dropped off before 8:25.
- Charlotte can't be dropped off before 8:30.
- It takes 20 minutes to get through the kiss & ride at Charlotte's school
- It takes 2 minutes to get through the kiss & ride at Connor's school

Is this giving anyone else a headache yet?

I gave up and cried "uncle" - after explaining the above to the folks at Connor's school, they have graciously allowed me a few extra minutes before counting him tardy. Thank goodness - this is one problem I don't think "x" can ever be solved for!