What Goes Around, Comes Around

When the movie Almost Famous came out, my rock-star friend Marc said to me "you've *got* to see this movie! It's you!" We'd had a conversation at one point about muses, or those girls who are an artist/writer/musician/intellectual's inspirations. He'd had many in his life, and he'd picked up on that energy from me, even through our online correspondence...

And it's true that a lot of my younger years were given over to being some man's inspiration (or the inspiration to many men) There were times when it bothered me quite a bit. I would wonder if that was the purpose of my life.

I finally watched Almost Famous a year or two ago, and there was indeed something about the character of Penny Lane that was, indeed, a young me--living in a world of men and creativity, giving my creative energy to them.

Creative energy can be such a confusing thing when we're young. If we're around creative men, we tend to give it to them beacause we can't seem to know what to do with it. If we meet a guy who desires children, then it becomes directed (yes, I'm about to say some feminist heracies here, but, I'm sorry, this is kind of the way it is when we're young women...) As much as we think we settle men down, men--the right men--settle some of us down too...

If we never meet those men, we have to forge our creativity into something of our own. We have to create for ourselves--and we have to create our Selves. Nobody's going to do that for us....

Yesterday, I had a card reading--it went quite well. There are some blocks now, but it's up to me to push them out of the way. Then, things will go very well! The most telling thing in the reading was the Queen of Wands--with the Queen indicating that I'm coming into my own....

This got me thinking again about my life as it relates to the lives of men--of all that creative energy--and of the burst of creative energy I've been feeling lately. It's an energy I haven't felt in a long time. At least not like this. This is new, different....

Because I'm beginning to see some of that creativity that I gave out so long ago come back to me!

It's been coming slowly--and at first it was rather scary. I wasn't all that ready for it, and I'd spent way too much time in the upside-down world of feminist thinking that kept telling me that men and women can't be friends, and that women should stick only to women...

Well, maybe some women stick only to dealing with other women, but my world's always been one of balance, with men contributing a great deal to my world.

Without them, my world is pretty much monochromatic--uncreative--boring.

They add spice, life, color and...of all things..

Inspiration...

That wonderful creative inspiration that I gave so freely (sometimes just by my presence) is coming back in so many positive ways. New clients who want to feed my creativity. The guy who gave me a makeover yesterday--which I just have an odd feeling will lead to an additional career path. Or at least something new, creative, fun that feeds a part of me that doesn't get fed in my work online because it requires more than just words on a screen...

I've always said, there's just so much of us that can be put online--and there's just so much of our lives that some of us can live online.

So much of my life happens off-line.

I can only create on line when I have real f2f energy feeding me IRL. This space doesn't quite feed me the way that interacting with people will feed me...

And the way in which I see the wonderful energy of men feeding my life right now.

It's as if all that creative spark and energy that I couldn't deal with when I was young, and that I freely gave to so many men who I encountered--is coming back to me. This seems to be a special, magical time. And I'm ready for it, too. I understand what's going on and I really don't fear it. If I have to learn new things, I can learn them. If I have to travel somewhere I can do that too. If I have to meet bunches of people, that's cool too...

I am fascinated by the ways that men are showing up in my life as friends and helpers and inspirations. And I understand something I never would have if you'd told me when I was younger: that having given creative energy and inspiration generously and freely when I didn't know what to do with it, could come back to me now when I'm ready for it and open to its possibility....