I've been thinking recently about muses. Although I discovered a passion for art at a young age, I never cared for the oft-encountered concept of the female muse, whose beauty inspires the the male artist to create his work. It seemed that she was often no more than a body who aroused the emotion or lust which fueled his creative prowess, "an object subjected to the male gaze" as I learned in many an art class and feminist theory class in college. I don't dare to consider myself a true artist, although I have desperately wished I could be...but in any case, from my mid-teens, I wanted to reverse this established relationship between the female muse and the male artist. I looked for male muses to inspire my own art, as unaccomplished as it may be, and I found them. They were not traditional muses; I didn't respond to their physical selves, really. No objectification on my part. (Heh). I just sensed that they would appreciate the part of me which I feared to share with others, my philosophical ramblings and leaps of imagination and word experiments. But alas, it seems that muse relationships are not long for this world...things have apparently just ended between my latest muse and me.

Anyway, I need to stop looking for muses. I need to nurture and push myself to write and make art, not to rely on others to spur me on. I don't need to look for another muse. Looking for friends, for lovers? Of course. But not another muse. I only need myself to unleash the beauty, the imagination, the wild reckless spirit which reside in every person.

Sometimes I wish I could be more like Bruno.