My Muse is a Powerful Creature

            Down the road and around a true ninety-degree-curve there is a cattle and horse farm.  They have a big sign up that says something about Horse Boarding and Riding Lessons.  I love to take afternoon walks in that direction; it’s so peaceful.  And plus, that farm holds one form of the spirit of my muse. 

            Last year when I went to my first writing certificate program trimester, we were asked to describe our muse.  That was an easy description then.  She was a gray mare with powerful legs, barrel-chested and had a large, lovely head.  I knew this because the week before my husband and I spent a few days at a little ranch style bed and breakfast up near Land Between The Lakes in Calvert City, Kentucky.  The horses out in the pasture came quickly for horse treats that the owner of the place left in the room.  I hadn’t been around horses in nearly 30 years, and the desire just to touch a horse’s velvety nose ran through me like lightning.  

            “Hold your hand flat when you feed one,” I said, showing off my vast knowledge of how to feed and pet a horse to my husband.  I put my face up next to the gray and inhaled all the molasses and grass smells that surrounded her face.  This is what I had been waiting for all summer—just a chance to be with the horses.  It’s why I booked this particular B&B.

            “They love for you to blow in their noses, too,” I said, as I blew gently into one nostril. The horse tossed her head up and down once as if to say yes.  

            Then all of a sudden, it sneezed so hard that my face, glasses, throat, and shoulders dripped globs horse snot.  I pulled my glasses off immediately; I couldn’t see through so much slime.  I think I said, “eewww,” but maybe I just thought it, felt it. 

            Without my glasses, I just saw forms.  Looking over at my husband, his form was bent completely over.  “Your hair flew straight back!” He said, gasping for air.  I heard more laughter out of him than I had in the eighteen years we had been married.  Did I mention that this was an anniversary trip?

            So that weekend, a horse showered me with enough snot to wipe away my writer’s block of nine years.  I had a clean slate, tubua rasa.  I can’t say the same for my clothes or glasses.  It took a while to get the goo out. 

            I started writing my first novel that trimester.  I’m still s l o w l y working on it.  Maybe I need to go find another gray mare.

Karen