Today is a special day as I am giving recognition to Claris for the first time. Claris is a part of me, she is the part that makes things perfect. I don’t just make cookies, Claris drives me to change the recipes and understand why they get flat, chewy, puffy, burned, doughy, moist, dry, flakey, and the things I do to peanut butter cookies that have them stain your fingers and melt in your mouth, lacks a word, but I can do it because of Claris.
Claris helps me when I look at a project, to find the most efficient method and she’s always looking over my work looking for ways to improve. And Claris loves projects but there is a little bit of something pleasurable when Claris finally approves, there is this little spark of godhood inside me grinning.
Infact she’s annoyed with me now because I didn’t check to spell her name. Its Clair-ees, and she’s afraid you are reading her name as Clair-iss. Infact you need to watch Silence of the Lambs to hear Anthony hopkins say the name, because thats how I hear her name in my mind whenever I type it. And the thing is I don’t know if I’m the cannibal or if Claris is.
I have not treated Claris very well for how much she serves me. I have ignored her resented her and outright hated her. Claris and I have been at war since my college years and sadly thats a LONG time. The thing is today I realized that the war is my fault. Claris is a part of me or if she’s just a type of Muse she is trying to improve me, to make me perfect. Claris loves me and she wants everyone to love me. She believes if I am perfect that the world will love me. She fights with me because she is so very very much in love with me she doesn’t want me to fail at anything, she doesn’t want me to be laughed at or rejected.
I already have a Muse. The one I love is called Imogena. I've known her since I was 4. She’s had different names, but Imogena is the latest and the longest, and she loves me just as much as Claris but Imogena is much more fun. Imogena’s favorite words are “what if” and she’s been seeding stories in my head everyday since we met. Imogena knows the language of cats, birds, babies and people strolling through malls. She’s a people watcher. In fact on the drive back to the house after she suggest that we name Claris, Clair-ees, I turned down a road don’t usually turn down and the block was one house long before it was cut off by an alley road. Imogena smiled at me and said “That house is an island. What if there is some magic in living in an island house, there must be fairies in there.”
And now my head is buzzing with ideas about a house that is an island amid the river roads.
and then Claris chimes in. she can’t help herself, she tells me that the names of the roads around the house should be river names, and I should look up good river names, and that because the roads are river names the house is a natural sanctuary because vampires can't cross the roads and I can’t help but smile at that.
Claris will sink in deeper if I let her and then she’ll begin to tear at my words. My writing isn’t good enough. It isn’t efficient, and it isn’t perfect and then I either stop writing and find something to distract myself from my imperfection or I turn on myself reminding myself how imperfect I am and why would I think I can write to begin with and I STOP WRITING.
And thats not what Claris wants. It’s not what I want. Claris is not the black rot inside me, she’s not the abuse and neglect of my childhood. Claris is a muse just like Imogena, she may not be a fun one but Imogena doesn’t bake, and I make some really good cookies thanks to Claris.
I needed to name Claris today. I needed to fully understand what she does for me and what I do to myself so that when I begin to feel like I can’t write I can talk to Claris and remind her that she can help me improve the second draft. I need to empower myself and love myself as much as my muses love me. I must be lovable. I have two muses.
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