I worked on an article for a magazine today for about four hours. It's still not finished but it's close. The muse is pumping and I'm in the flow.
But it's 5:55 pm and my rest tonight includes a date with my wife at six pm.
I have two options:
1. Post-pone our date for thirty minutes to finish the article.
2. Reject the muse and stop working.
This isn't a hard decision. My spouse is more important than my writing (sorry, Hemingway), and besides, she'd yell at me (Talia was offended that I told people she yells at me. Just so you know, fortunately, her yells sound like kittens mewing) if I didn't turn off. I saved the article and shut down my computer (or I will after finishing this). Done. Rest on.
However, most of the time we don't make this decision. We choose to postpone rest (a date with ourselves, our souls) all the time.
What if our souls started yelling at us if we didn't spend time with them?
Oh wait, they do. They yell through stress, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, shallow thought, shallow relationship, burnout short attention spans. Maybe we should pay more attention.
Today, schedule a date night with your soul. What will you talk about? How much fun can you have together?
I am reading this after turning on my computer for the first time in 48 hours. Sure, I was keeping an eye on emails and Twitter from my phone but nothing major happened in the world. It was good. It’s also good to be back.
Katie
Awesome, Katie!
I had a date with my husband after leading worship this morning. We walked in the park holding hands, drinking tea and laughing together for 8 km. It is good to spend time together.
I love your priorities! The investment in your wife and in yourself will ensure that the muse returns again and again. It’s the smartest thing you can do as a writer (and as a human being).
says the father of the wife:)
Muses benefit from rest.
Tell your soul there’s nothing better than being in the flow of the muse, i.e. “Soul, get with the program and get in line. This flow is happenin’ now and I’m going to catch it on the screen before it is lost forever in the mists of arcanity.”
On second thought, maybe one thing is better than being in that muse-stream: being in the flow with the mate who is, has been, and will be committed to you for life. Nothing better than true love; its numero uno in this life, like precious gold, a la the gold on your finger and hers.
So, to recap: 1.) Marital love conquers all. It is the highest priority on earth. 2.)Inspiration is a close second.
Loved this post… seems to me you honoured your soul and your wife. Lovely.
So wise of you to nourish your relationship with your wife and to care for your soul.
I like your priorities. Investing in our spouses invests us in our lives. Tomorrow we can follow the breadcrumbs dropped by the muse.
The post is a good one, reminding me of the same point Julia Cameron made with Artist Dates. Can’t join other posters in their paeans to married life, but the point for me is, I do owe myself time to sit and “do nothing” while I have a leisurely, deep inner conversation with this soul, this inner witness who will be inner guide if I will just stop being busy-busy long enough to listen. It’s the way to discover my truth, especially when I have wandered afield from it.
You made the right choice. The Muse may temporarily abanson you, but she will (eventually) come back. However, once you go senile, as we all will one day, your wife needs to still be around to change your colostomy bag. 😀
Yikes! I hadn’t thought of that.
Good call Joe! Happy wife happy life as they say.
Saturday night my middle child was up sick and I achieved a total of two hours sleep. Now I was fretting on his behalf of course — thinking, is it a gastro-virus or worse, what is he incubating? — but frankly, the worse thought keeping me awake all night long was ‘do I get a day off tomorrow or not?’ Because if the kids are ill they don’t go to dad’s house, and that’s it. Luckily my boy woke up in the morning completely recovered.
I got to have the house and the rest of the day to myself. My soul & I hung out having a mani/pedi, a face masque and enjoying the ultimate luxury; MY music. Then to cap off a perfect day I bought hot chips and watched the new episode of the BBC’s ‘Sherlock’. I woke up Monday morning renewed and ready for a brand new week. Without that day of respite… well I shudder to think!
I’d rather have a date night with my husband than myself tonight. We’ll see how that goes! 🙂
In many ways, having a date night with your spouse is a date night with yourself. My wife is out of town, and her absence makes me realize just how much my soul is really our soul. Have fun, Denise 🙂