A jumble of thoughts criss-cross my brain, wrestling one with the other, grappling for expression. After a long, dry season (ironically, that is true both literally and metaphorically), my fingers are itching to rat-a-tat-tat at the keyboard and I find myself falling asleep at night to the comforting and long-absent cascade of words clamoring for expression. I compose whole paragraphs as I drift off to dreamland, vowing to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard upon awakening the next morning.

Of course, morning invariably brings with it the harsh glare of reality, the rush-rush of preparing for another day in the real world; and my golden words find themselves consigned to the shelf at the back of my mind where they sit impatiently, sometimes tap-tap-tapping at my consciousness, sometimes crawling down my arms to my fingers in an effort to find release into the ether world of electronic expression and cogitation. After such a protracted absence, I am tempted to throw responsibility to the wind and give free rein to my love affair with words, so happy am I that they have found me once again.

Ah, but I value those elusive words far too much to not give them their proper due, so I urge them back onto the shelf to wait for the time when I can give myself to their full expression. They have found me again and that is enough for now. The yearning is back and the joy I find in that is palpable. I had feared that the press of rejoining the work-a-day world might have welded shut the door to my elusive muse, that the demands of responsibility and the selling of my soul once again to the corporate world had consigned my creative self to a literary purgatory. Happily, I find that the right brain and the left brain can indeed peacefully co-exist.

Now that my muse is properly reinstated and my beloved words are again floating in a lazy river encircling my head, my biggest obstacle appears to be the constraints of time. Oh, for the luxury of another few hours in each day, or even the addition of another full day in the week. If I’m going to dream, why not dream big? My logical, corporate-minded cohorts would argue for better time management, but there’s a soul killing, creativity quashing concept if ever I’ve seen one. The idea of a regimented, scheduled appointment with the creative sectors of my mind is laughable. That is not the way it works, as evidenced by my penchant for mentally composing whole essays while driving to work or as I’m slipping into sleep. However, I’m not oblivious to the fact that, dream as I may, there are only 24 hours in the day and if I’m going to accommodate my beloved muse, I will have to beat back my tender sensibilities and surrender to the all-too-real necessity to … pardon me while I shudder … schedule time for my love affair. Those words aren’t going to compose themselves into golden orbs of thought without some coaxing from me.

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