Midnight Ramblings

There is nothing more delicious than being up just past the witching hour, when everything just seems to automatically meld into the background, the sound of the clothes dryer quietly whirring away, chugging away, contributing quietly to the milieu that surrounds... laid back chillin' music playing in the background (*wink, wink* atcha, Chit ;)) - you find an unexpected clarity - you can extract sound from noise effortlessly, and you are suddenly aware of a continuous stream and flow of words and thoughts through your mind, the blood through your veins... and before you know it, your heart pulsates rapidly, your head is transformed into a racing speedway, neurons racing, and you feel your hands just can't keep up, with the little glimmers of dust that have been transformed into gold... the "elusive orchestra", as it were (kudos to Joyce and G for that).

It is times like these when Joyce Johnson's words are at the epitome of their truth. When an artist - may it be a painter and his canvas or a writer and his quill or a musician and his guitar - feels just that initial burst of inspiration, the muse suddenly reveals himself/herself... and then the struggle begins. Run! Try! Catch that elusive butterfly. Oh, if I become one with this butterfly, play with this orchestra as one, harmoniously, just once in my life, I shall want nothing more.

"It was as if a muffled orchestra played inside my head at such a distance I couldn't quite get all of what was playing. There were all these notes and rhythms not yet imbued with sense, but suggesting it, calling it into being. I'd write sentences in my notebook and sometimes get very close to this orchesta. Other times it would trick me and vanish around corners, leaving trampled words that made thin, whistling noises when I read them over. I'd be convinced the orchestra would never play again, but then it would resume as if it had never stopped - I'd simply failed to reach it." ~ Joyce Johnson (Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful quote with me, G, I think you have yet to realize just how much it hit me :)).