Jed Wolf

After reading about writers awakened by inspiration who claimed their masterworks were dictated by the unseen, then transcribing a few of my own dreams into failed musicals, my muses continue to be patient. Though I don’t believe in any religious deities, I first noticed invisible help as a child while improvising on the piano then later after struggling to compose in boarding school when they co-wrote my first songs.

Muses continue to gently nudge me as I struggle to compile essays. They’d prefer I listen more and race less to get far enough into projects not to quit but they know me. When I become too anxious they clam up though not like I used to around my parents. Muses don’t hold grudges; however, they do test for sincerity and seem to respond well to prayer.

Their ability to find truth beneath needless words was uncanny fifteen years ago when I began writing on Facebook. Now, channeling whole sentences continues to be as spiritual as panning for gold, depending on my fickle moods. Learning to trust unseen guidance for heathens like me still takes effort to keep out of their way.

I refer to muses as plural because humans can believe anything we want and though I feel less undeserving than ever, I might need a village one day. Whatever’s behind their help might be female energies as they’re clearly a superior intelligence but unlike banal humans with motives, mythological Harpies, or my dead mother’s voice bless her heart, who in her familiar threatening cadence, continues to provide unending crap to write about, muses lack personality and vocal tone.

Using words to describe inspiration is limiting enough but naming or humanizing as some do their higher powers, old vehicles or random strangers fiddled with in the dark is unnecessary. Too much analysis crucifies them into silence.

Writers are more likely to describe them as miracle-weaving lifelines to tightrope on or parachutes to dangle from while sitting on our asses, but why do they insist I share intimate details of my journey. It’s probably none of my business and though thinking I know might cast me into Hell, I still want to.

Crisscrossing my steaming pile of essays for which to assemble into a book, there I said it. A BOOK is equally possible and quittable but one concern is; for the last fifteen years I’ve been writing on a “friends only” Facebook page. There’s no order. Random essays need tons of editing. They’re full of redundant zig zagging and my laisse faire urge to enjoy my own rides led friends to comment about how much I saved on therapy.

Though I’ve become better at handling worried-looking emojis, I still hate being criticized. After an unflattering song I wrote about Sarah Palin and later posted on YouTube went viral, thousands of hateful comments shut me down for years. Why must I subject myself? Crickets.

As the planet and I descend further into not knowing, a normal person might want to do or save something, be of service somehow or protect whales but the thought of singing in nursing homes makes my throat hurt. I’m already in a chorus singing enough Disney music to choke a horse so the last thing I feel like doing is music.

While fixing my eighty-five-year-old friend’s garden, I heard a podcaster discussing the possibility that Facebook and data in general throughout the world could suddenly vanish.

“Arrange your shit in the order you wrote it for Christ’s sake,” I heard my father bellow from beyond the grave but immediately after, I knew he couldn’t help himself which I’d discovered only through writing. Muses don’t say, “quit flying up your own ass,” or, “who the Hell’s gonna read it?” Had I believed either of my parent’s edicts, I’d have committed suicide long ago. Fortunately, when I had the chance to tell them, writing allowed me to leave them be and forgive myself. They’d been damaged enough.

Over the years, my handful of caring Facebook friends have rarely offered advice. Comments and emojis were supportive and anyone disinterested or triggered was kind enough not to say so. I’m grateful for such a caring hothouse to grow in but being blessed with lifelong friends while enjoying a loving husband and a nice house in gorgeous surroundings among neighbors we adore feels unfair to the whales.

Since scattering my father’s ashes, I have over three hundred pages which few have seen because I was afraid of being criticized but lately between Maga, Covid, climate change and hereditary health issues on a planet spinning with vengeance, once again guilt appears to be the fission. Allowing fear to rule feels like treason. Compiling a coming-of-age gay memoir assisted by angels in a book-banning state seems like a good idea until around last supper time.