Just today I was discussing with the muse how I had writer’s block. I haven’t written anything new in a week. Oh, I have posted items, but these were written a while ago and kept in a journal. But this last week, nothing, dry as a desert, completely without any inspiration. Then this conversation ensued:
ME: “Do you think it’s because of stress?”
MUSE: “Yeah, may you should buy a new pair of shoes.”
ME: “Excellent idea, but I need a pedicure first. I don’t like to go to Nordstrom with anything less than pristine toes. It’s the little things in life.”
MUSE: “Ten little things. Sounds like a news correspondent, “We now to go to Pristine Toes, live at the Great Wall of China.”
ME: “Or maybe the Pristine Chapel in Italy. Where Michelangelo painted nothing but toes.”
MUSE: “Michelangelo as a pedicurist, now that’s a funny bit.”
And that lead me to imagining Mick (Michelangelo’s nick name) painting away, suspended in the far regions of the chapel and getting tired, bored and a little out of sorts. Nothing but colors swirl in front of his eyes, the images have already blurred into a giant mass. When this thought occurs to him, “What if I change my perspective. What if I look at this from the ground up.”
From then on he painted nothing but toes. The toes of Adam as he was being created by God, assuming God worked from the ground up. The toes of Adam and Eve and original sin, as viewed by the serpent. Noah and his ark with just the toes of the animals showing as they boarded. Furry toes, cloven toes, uncloven toes, toes, toes, nothing but toes.
These “inspirational” thoughts brought me to my main point; Mick as a pedicurist. Completing his fascination with toes, he turned from ceilings and opened the first nail salon in Italy. For the next fifty-two years he happily applied his art, painting swirls, colors, and tiny, tiny figures. He depicted the great events in history, all in a matter of a square inch or less. And he didn’t have to do it hanging from a ceiling.
As I mentioned later to the muse:
ME: “Well, that was a weird way to get inspiration.”
MUSE: “Yeah, take it where you can get it.”
magicalmess 