Llama Muse.

His laugh: Vaguely hyena, part labrador-loose-in-the-surf, not mocking, but the tiniest bit cryptic, comically so. He made me want to write. Since it was too wonderfully cold for sitting outside by the fountain and attention-sucking candlelight, for two nights we kept company, this llama and I, as I revised and created by the spersed glow of an obviously eclectic lamp. Whenever I glanced up from the screen, there was his face, laughing me on. Odd little muse. Crude. Fine. Friendly.

Work of art.

I learned so much about myself-the-writer those two nights. Mainly this: Forget Modigliani, Dufy, Monet, and that portrait of the confident looking lady and her boy whose creator’s name I can never remember, even when I’m standing right before the masterpiece, gazing. Forget Tiffany turtles or sunflowers in vases. Forget a plate of Jo Jo’s and a glass of whole milk next to my laptop. Forget a goblet of wine (well…), a pint of Guiness, or a cup of Mexican coffee in the middle of a radically clear night on Sierra Mar’s cliff-hung patio (yes, truly forget that). Forget stars and moon and bubbling fountains reflecting candlelight in a borrowed house in a seaside town that comes with pink mountains and inspiring views (if you can get over the beauty and get down to creating). Put a laughing llama in front of me? I’m a writing automaton.

I look forward to the day I stumble across my own personal laughing llama, the one I will pick up, dust off, place reverently in my beachbag purse and take home forever. I will call her Llama (because I am so very creative). And I will love her. Indefinitely.

(Mrs. Edward L. Davis And Her Son Livingston—John Singer Sargent, of course. Will. Not. Forget.)