One of my “Muses”

My daughter Emma is a constant source of entertainment for me. You could even call her my Muse. She’s not my only one, I have a couple of them (more on them later). The definition of “muse” as a noun in the dictionary is “a state of deep thought or dreamy abstraction”. I have a slightly different definition. To me, a Muse is someone that brings out the best in you just by being who they are. They don’t TRY bring out anything in you…..it just HAPPENS. Not really someone you say “Hey, THAT is a totally cool person, I want to be just like them”….. No….It’s someone that inspires and encourages “something” that already exists in you, and simply by being around that person, and interacting with them, this “goodness” or “fun”, or “creativeness”, whatever your “something” is, comes spilling out of you.

Back to Emma……I marvel constantly at her comprehension of life and “things”. Sometimes I think that she is 6yrs old going on 50. I guess you could say she’s kind of an old soul. Rather than just bounding into things feet first…she absorbs and contemplates first. She craves knowledge. Now, I don’t consider myself “dumb”, but good grief I sure feel like an idiot when she (6yrs old), sits in the back seat of our SUV, asking me (38yrs old) questions about life and creation and how things work….and I realize, I have no clue what the answer is! Let me give you an example. (Those of you that I am Facebook friends with will have heard this example already). The other day, we were just driving merrily down the highway, and after several minutes of silence, Emma asks “Mom, who put the very first dinosaur eggs on the Earth?” My first thought is oh great; here we go……more questions I have NO clue how to answer. My second thought is to just say “God did”. Sounds good, right? Then she asks “Then who took care of them?” The only answer I could muster up was that “they were ready to hatch when he put them here”. I was pretty sure that little Q&A session was going to get me stricken-down by lightening, but I’m still here typing this, so I think I got a “gimme” on that one. I should know this stuff, right? We have also had some very interesting and short (thanks to my well-developed ability to change the subject) about the creation of Earth, what happened to the dinosaurs, how come they could not outrun the meteorite…and so on. She’s really into playing with and reading about dinosaurs right now, so at least I know that’s where the questions are coming from, and not (thank goodness) an undying need to know about evolution and religion.

My Muse looking out on Hood Canal

In addition to her analytical side, she also has a fantastic imagination. She told me once that a “Bubble-a-saurus is a GOOD dinosaur that carries dirt around to flowers that don’t have any”. She also told me that “Gardner snakes won’t hurt you, they protect your garden and make your flowers grow, and lick them”. (I’m assuming that those are the flowers that did get dirt and didn’t need the Bubble-a-saurus to deliver dirt to them.)

As much as her inquisitiveness drives me nuts sometimes, I really wouldn’t rather it be any other way. Like I’ve said, she amazes me, and she cracks me up sometimes. She is definitely a Muse for me.