Everything I want to know I might already have learned and forgotten over and over and over.
It's incredibly frustrating.
I remember reading once that Scorpios- me, I'm Nov. 10th- go through periods of intense withdraw and transformation throughout their lives. I do, I do, I do. I drink and drink and drink until I am so full of the world that my eyes are drunk and sick and I am spinning and miserable and then there is a volcanic shift, always painful, sometimes dangerous, and I am stepping fresh from the fire like a daisy never burnt. It's slightly romantic. It's definitely productive for my writings. It's hard on my relationships- my husband, my children. It's hard on me. It's childish.
The phrase Mr. Curry and I mock and yet use because of it's inevitability: It is what it is. And what it is is when you take a Scorpio child, a writer by DNA and by sensibility, and then you add a terrifying Father and painful childhood, and you get The Pirate Queen. That's the name of my poem novel. It's all done. I'm waiting for a cover from someone wonderful. If he's reading, no pressure. Ha!!! I can't apply that to myself in the slightest. No pressure. No pressure. Like oxygen for me. I spend much of my life trying to relieve the constant pressure in my soul. Buddhism says that this is the path of the un-enlightened. That we experience only isolation, lonliness, worry, fear- interspersed with moments of joy or freedom. Enlightenment is when a person lives inside freedom.
Why don't we all spend all our time trying to be enlightened?
I can't answer, it's too embarrassing. The answer is I'm too busy trying to remember to take my vitamins. Or floss. Or sign Lola's homework sheet. You know. Life, or my version of it.
I spent a year of my life learning about Buddhism once, and practicing, and meditating, and I was the best version of myself I'd known in a long time- maybe ever- but I can't stay. I can't keep.
After a baby I am an other for a year, maybe two. Yes, two. For two, I'm not of. I'm other.
This post has the most I's of any post I've written in a long time. iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
I'm sick of I.
If there's anything else I want to say, I don't want to hear about it!
ps
I'm going to dedicate myself for one entire more year to meditation and .. you know, other enlightening stuff.
pss
I'm serious!!!
psss
I mean it.
Well, you know- there is that other saying- Before enlightenment, haul water, chop wood. After enlightenment, haul water, chop wood.
There is always water to haul and wood to chop. Always. We do it as mindfully as we can.
Congratulations on the poem novel! Another birth of sorts.
sometimes your posts hit the nail so exactly on the head for me that I don't know what to say but I want to say *something*, just so you know this is so.
so... I did :)
You are not alone. My attempts at meditation and relaxing breathing exercises are forever being sucker-punched by reality. I need more concentration!!
I love your post title. Life feels like that, doesn't it? Yet, life is what we have, with everything... and parenting. I'm glad to hear about your novel, and I'm looking forward to reading it.
The Pirate Queen---sounds wonderful. Go go go, Maggie!
First, Scorpios drive me nuts. Not you, just the ones I'm related to. My daughter, my late MIL and her daughter. They are all crazy making!
Second, I completely agree about life getting in the way of enlightenment.
Woo hoo! The Pirate Queen! Can't wait until your novel's out :)
Enlightenment, that's a tricky one...I consider myself a Buddhist-wannabe...I dabble, never fully immerse, which is probably why I'm so unenlightened :)
The Pirate Queen. I already love it. Please keep us posted!!
p.s. a couple of things: ALL of my closest friends are Scorpios. My mother is a Scorpio. I feel like I know Scorpios well. I like them. I'm a Sagittarius. I think we may slightly annoy the Scorpios from time to time but other than that we are made for one another--and not only neighbors on the Zodiac but in life. :)
Did you read Eat Pray Love? I didn't and I won't fake it. But I did see the movie because I adore Julia Roberts and Jarvier Bardem. Anyway, I liked the movie BUT I couldn't help but think while watching it that she would have a pretty hard time soul-searching while mothering young children!
These days I feel lucky if I can squeeze in a shower--and not fall asleep while trying to both shower and pray at the same time! Ha!
hurray on the novel!!!! can't wait!
also, wrote a post that also touched on buddhism today and clicked over here and realized that being enlightened must be on the world's brain today.
Is that how it goes? one or two years of 'other'? since this is my first baby, i do feel other right now. Does that mean I will fit back into myself again? hopeful...feeling like the other is forever. good to know this might be temporary :-)
psssss ME TOO.
(my word verif is jected. chuckle)
The words on your image took my breath away. "The people you love become ghosts inside you..."
I was just today writing and writing on that, having lost my father a year and a half ago, just now getting comfortable with the relationship I will have with him for the rest of my life, as a voice in my head.
Kind of like a therapist, once internalized. But funnier. (My Dad was funny.)
And, yes, babies do "other" you for a time. I had two at once. It was a lot more than a year until I felt the familiar lines of my personhood begin to form back into a familiar shape again.
Also? I have had very... interesting relationships with Scorpios over the years. Not the easiest, but often deeply moving. Not for the faint of heart.
Just saw "you" over at Sixth in Line and thought: I miss Maggie! Must say I am thrilled for you about your poem novel. I have no doubt that it is brilliant. It will probably make you famous. :)
If I see Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley lookalikes w/ swords and eyepatches and ships and shit on the cover of your book I'm going to be very upset. Congratulations. Love, draagulla
I can actually relate to this on so many levels. I guess thats why the enlightened ones have less responsibilities. Hmmf.
I'm not sure that I ever had enlightenment, but my life would most surely get in the way if I did. Congratulations, Maggie, on finishing the book. I will definitely put buying it and reading it on my to do list. I have no doubt that there's enlightenment inside!
This is the thing, for me:
I read, I feel so happy that I've gained a new perspective, I pray to change.
Then the next day I get wrapped up in the mundane and the petty, adn go right back to the unenlightened self.
So disappointing.
But I love what you say: I feel that way,too...I just wish I coule remember I want to STAY changed.
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