Musing

One of the websites I visit most frequently is etymonline.com, a website devoted to the origins of words. You see, I love words. I cherish them. I think they are brilliant in the ways they can make us feel things, and I think they are beautiful in the ways they sometimes fail to articulate the things we feel.

As Mark Twain once famously quipped, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."

Words can be that big (and, truth be told, even those subtle fireflies are my favorite animal).

Today I found myself curious about the word muse and its origin. 

The word muse (and Muse, for that matter) is of particular interest to me this year because in many ways this year has felt different than any other. I have changed classrooms, transformed much of my curriculum, and I am doing more than I've ever done. I am a hustling whirlwind of activity on many days, and I am often stressed, anxious, and very much not well.

But I am also more consistently at peace, more aligned with my needs, patient with my faults, and generally fulfilled.

The moments of insecurity and self doubt still come, but in those moments I invite my own weakness and meet it. There is a running adage that goes, 

"You can let pain sit in the front seat, but don't EVER let it change the music."

The suggestion here is that during the course of a running race we will feel pain. And when the pain arrives we can invite it in. Welcome it. 

"Hi pain, I was wondering when you'd get here."

But what we can't do is allow pain to become the definitive tone...we can't change our difficult moments, but we can change how we respond to them. My grandmother, Ros McDonough, once wrote, "Just to show our weakness, the storm comes."

Which brings me to my Muse. My inspiration. The heart of my entire creative existence. 

When I met Nicole Chenell, the woman who (SPOILER ALERT!) would 13 months later become my partner and spouse, I was amazed by the way she challenged me. She inspired me, yes, but her inspiration came in the form and flavor of forcing me to think differently about the world...and about everything in it. She linked ideas, dug into difficult topics, and listened so brilliantly to better understand the world and people around her.

So, yes, eleven years later Nicole remains my Muse and my favorite musing partner.

But here is the way she has inspired me in the classroom: she has forced me to think about myself first. She has encouraged and questioned my motives, my outlook, my values, my dreams, and the lens through which I see the world. 

This ability has always been there. It's part of her essence, her innsaei. We often have joked that she is the "good listener" of our neighborhood, or the "world's therapist" because of the ways people open up to her (always embracing a depth and vulnerability that stretches beyond the familiarity of their relationship with her) at the park, the bus stop, while walking the dog.

But recently, Nicole has also taken some risks in a new direction. She has founded a life coaching business. And the growth and vulnerability she, herself, has displayed in reinventing herself has inspired my own creativity and my own vision for what's possible in my classroom and my life.

Her website, her Instagram profile...it's all the stuff of brilliant genius. It is helpful and hopeful and beautifully observant. It is a call to action and a treasure just waiting to be found. 

And it reminds me of my students. The world--and their crashing course through it--is ready for them and their brilliant ideas. They are in their infancy, but their thoughts and questions are real...they are big...and nobody else has their ideas. Nicole, my Muse, has been home with our kids for nine years and now she is breaking out of her chrysalis, spreading her wings, and letting the breeze float her to the next just right thing...always moving, always musing, waiting for the next idea to pollinate and spread. Just like my students, those students of the world who bring magic to my classroom each day.

And I suppose that's where I actually fall in love with the etymology of muse again. The moment when I read "to loiter, waste time" a smile broke across my face. Daydreaming is part of being creative. Nicole taught me that. Butterflies don't know which flower needs pollinating, they let the breeze float them to the next right flower for that moment.

And that's what musing--and Muses--do, they invite the big magic into our next great idea.