It must be tough to be a muse...

Fro writes: "Must not be easy being a muse; and probably that's the reason muses are almost never lasting companions."

I've thought on that before.

Yes, I guess being treated as a goddess and granted immortality by one who will contort, distort, divert and pervert himself in whatever way necessary to feed that legend is rough. Someone who places your comfort and pleasure even ahead of his own necessities. Someone who believes in you. Wow. Rough job, huh?

No, really.

You sooner or later have to look at yourself in an earnest mirror and doubt your worthiness. My old friend Jan Innes, who used to edit my books, once said that women see in me a chance at redemption, of being treated like the princess or goddess they would like to be, but once the world shows the slightest failure to follow through on my wishes and perception, they crash and burn and feel both unworthy and betrayed.

Tough being a Muse?

That's like tough being a goddess.

But imagine how the High Priest feels when the Goddess turns out to have dark roots, feet of clay, bad breath, poor manners and a tendency to treat you like dirt. I do have enough self esteem to sooner or later squirm when kicked. One day I wake up and realize being the whipping boy and scapegoat is not a costume I'd like to wear to Mardi Gras.

I've hung up my superman suits...yes, I'll still dash into traffic for the wounded puppy, but I'm going to stop advertising the fact. I've hung up my boy scout uniform, a long time ago, too many mistakes in a world that forgives evil in evil men but not error in those who are trying. everyday, to be more than just not bad. I've chopped up my crosses to make splints for the arms and legs and souls of those I've tried to help.

But after enough times getting burned carrying people from a burning building who just turn around and run back into the flames, you start wondering about the purpose.

A friend who later became a lover once asked what she would do when I found someone else, as she was going to need me for the rest of her life. She's gone now, alive but irrelevent. To quote Alanis Morisette: "But you're still alive."

I'm not angry or bitter, sometimes sad, but mostly I'm proud that I've walked more miles than most would. Not proud in that I think I'm better than everyone else, just pleased to have lived up to at least a part of a difficult ethos. I've counseled, mourned, healed, helped, carried, shielded, paid for, retrieved lost heirlooms and taken telishment in the name of love. I have laughed under the lash, as I like to say. I wear these scars with nobility and as reminders of lost hearts and those who would forget me forever if it wasn't the bragging rights to my inspiration.

On that topic: I plan to leave my estate, my intellectual property, to whatever muse most lives up to my ideal. Right now we have nobody really better than about a C- on a very liberal curve, so I hope I find someone worthy before I have to start consigning my rights to the furnace, or someone starts acting like they deserve the immortality I've given away. I've sowed my anagathic eloquences, let's see if anyone has a soul enough to want to have earned it. The line forms now.

On the question of whether muses damned to be comets, shooting stars, tears in the rain?

I'll let you know when I reach the other side. I'm not through yet. A little more patchwork is due, then I am roaring back like a stone dragon on meth ice. Or an Amomancer bent on theocricide. And this time, I will go until the flesh fails.

Yes. That's the key.