Writers’ Retreat Pt. 3: At Last, A Muse!

I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the inspiration for the work I completed at the Artisa Writers’ Retreat in Italy, during the two lovely weeks I spent there in May. Artisa Academic & Art Retreat, the place to create and to connect – Artisa (artisagreece.org)

I had an incredible wellspring of inspiration for my stay at the retreat. The writing time flew by! I wrote new sections of my book, completed a final revision of a chapter on satire I was writing for someone else’s book, and scribbled off some blog posts as well.

But what energy my impressive fellow writers brought to their range of projects!

R. wrote an entire draft of his novel, and he read to us his very fine Chapter 1 one night after dinner.

In. made huge progress on an interesting article about audiences for the arts, and L. wrote a powerful overview of her long career as an anthropologist, for her upcoming retirement celebration.

D. and W., when not hosting a convivial nightly aperitivo gathering, compiled impressive narratives of their respective research projects, crafting truly interesting contexts for their numbers and statistics. When they shared their work, on universal basic income, and on the fraught workings of the commercial trucking industry, we were all fascinated.

M. polished a fine academic article on democracy; the other M. is launching a very interesting book about minority representation in early American theater. And E. poured her heart and her inks into striking drawings and collages done in the little flower-covered studio that used to be a schoolhouse.

How could one not be spurred to higher levels of creativity in such an atmosphere?

Well, not if one has discovered an Even Higher Power of Inspiration! Then the heck with everyone else tapping and painting away.

My highly productive writing output was prompted by a far more elevated source of inspiration than my peers, and I have evidence.

I am talking about

The Hoopoe.

It’s a bird.

It’s a bird that appeared out of nowhere one day at Artisa, like nothing any of us had ever seen, careening through the air, banging into things, and then landing to knock insistently at windows.

The Hoopoe Bird is impossible to miss, and you are about to discover why.

Because the Hoopoe looks like this:

As you can see, as birds go, the Hoopoe rather stands out. These are some random internet pictures of random Hoopoes.

And here is our Hoopoe, below. Some at the retreat had seen it already and described it to the rest of us, and we were vainly trying to figure out what on earth it was.

My first spotting of the Hoopoe was on a low window ledge outside the dining room, but I had no camera to record it, as I’d left my phone in my little church, because I was trying to be all unplugged and focused-like.

Repeat after me: “Take your phone with you at all times. Because what will happen if you don’t take your phone with you? You will see a Hoopoe.”

But later that day the Hoopoe Bird came to visit my church.

See if you can spot the Hoopoe in this picture:

In Italy, they say that it is a sign of remarkable good fortune if a Hoopoe bird lands near your door!

“È un segno di notevole fortuna se un uccello Upupa atterra vicino alla tua porta!”

No, they don’t actually say that. I just made that up.

But I did have my phone, and I could see the Hoopoe clearly on the railing through the screen door of the little church . . .

And it kept looking back at me.

What a bird!

I took these excellent pictures from my desk. Then the Hoopoe flew off, squawking “Hoop-Hoop-Hoop,” probably to go find something new to bang into.

I returned to my writing, noticing later that the time absolutely zoomed by, and that I’d soared unflappably through an impressive amount of new writing.

Early the next morning I awoke with lots of time before the start of Optional Morning Yoga and Sitting Meditation, so I started hunting on my phone for information about Hoopoe Birds.

The Hoopoe, Upupa epops, pops up in Africa and Southern Europe. Apparently they will also show up sometimes in Northern Europe, but that is entirely by accident, as they have a documented habit of overshooting their Southern European breeding areas, and landing in the wrong country entirely. Once some Hoopoes were spotted for no comprehensible reason in Alaska. When they get over their geographical confusion, they start flapping and head back to the countries they are supposed to land in, like Italy.

Hoopoes eat bugs.

Hoopoes are classified in an official bird organization video as “woodland birds,” but in an admirable show of pure cussedness they, the video also notes, “don’t like densely wooded areas.” In other words, Hoopoes are woodland birds who avoid woodlands.

Well, I totally get that. Like long-time city-dwellers who never stop touting their metropolis to anyone within earshot, and then leave every chance they get.

There are three types of Hoopoes in the world: African, Madagascar, and Eurasian. Ours was Eurasian.

Hoopoes can be considered highly literary birds, in that they turn up on the pages of the Quran, the Torah, Aristophanes The Birds, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and on the walls of Egyptian tombs. And now in a blog post near you.

Male Hoopoe Birds alternate feathery mating call demonstrations to entice females with, and here I want absolutely everyone to pay special attention, regular deliveries of particularly enticing offerings of food!

Potential Suitors, are you listening? The males make spontaneous drop-offs of a female’s favorite food items! Luscious worms, larvae, crickets, beetles, and grasshoppers!

Wait. It gets better.

Hoopoes have the distinctly distinctive ability to target potential predators with singularly stinky projectile poop.

Because a Hoopoe can look out for itself, thank you very much!

I glanced at my watch. It would soon be time for Yoga. Suitably edified now in All Manner of Things Hoopoe, I climbed down the steps from my sleeping loft in my little church, and ambled over to the bathroom, with its large round mirror over the sink. . .

I’d been meaning to share a picture of the bathroom facilities in the little church! They were splendid.

To discover that there had been a miraculous transformation during the night!

I now looked like this.

Out of nowhere had arrived a rockabilly pompadour of Lynchian dimensions.

I had Spontaneous Hoopoe Hair!

I didn’t so much wake up in a David Lynch movie . . .

as wake up as David Lynch.

And it wouldn’t budge. I tried a brush. My Hoopoe Hair was going nowhere.

It was a flippin’ Lyle Lovett of a hair-do.

So I just left it up there, brushed my teeth, put on a sweater, and shuffled over to the Yoga Studio to find out if I’d gotten any closer to touching my toes.

I walked in, pointed to my head, and announced, “I have Hoopoe Hair!” and everyone laughed.

But it was clear to me that day that the Hoopoe Bird and I had a special connection, and that my amusing Muse had made its arrival known.

For as the famous Italian saying goes:

L’upupa farà spiccare il volo al tuo lavoro!

The Hoopoe Bird will make your work take wing!

Actually I made that one up too.