Response to my Friend ARVIN's MySpace post... (samsara filled post)
Let me tell you about existing in the mundane while harboring the spark!
Oh...let me tell you. I have had what some would call "an exciting life."
I've won gold metals before I
started my period. I rode my bicycle
and touched my fee
t to my schnozzle to the applause of adoring fan. I had companies give me
free schwag and groupies...yes, I had groupies. All before I was 18.
Then I went to school and studied art and people said "ohhhhh...look at the
talent!" and I smiled and bowed, but it really wasn't anything because I
had been told that "I was one of the great ones" at this point, it was
really all entitlement. I felt I deserved it. Then I started taking
pictures for the magazines my peers read, and they sent me on trip to hand
out with fabulous people in fabulous places doing fabulous things. So...I
thought I was fabulous.
Ah...this was when the cracks began to show. You see my fabulous boyfriend
was famous and we were a fabulous team. But one thing I learned was that if
you are the meal ticket for dozens of others and they NEED you onstage and
coherent for at least three hours a night in order to maintain their
livelihood...THEY will manage you.
I had no managers. I partied "like a rock star" but I didn't have the
handlers who would make sure I didn't fall apart. So I fell apart earlier
than most...and more completely. But that was good...get it over with
quickly! Back to the Path.
But I was Icurus with my wings chopped off. I had to walk on the ground
after that. I had to realize that I was human with sparks of greatness and
it was up to me to hone and polish and show those sparks.
Dammit. I sometimes HATE being human. And at these times I have to
remember *that most desolate moment*. You know the one. The one that is so
humiliating and degrading that it reminds me to be grateful for all the
bullshit and boring shit I have to endure wading around in the mediocrity
with few people who will fawn on my and my "memories of being great."
Because now, I'm a 36 year old woman with a bad back. I'm a single mother
who doesn't have time to date or entertain romantic notions. I'm more
concerned with feeding and clothing my child and making sure she had her
permission slips signed for her field trips and that I can afford to buy her
cleats and a pink batting helmet, that I let my gym membership go with the
hopes that "maybe sometime in the future I'll get a raise and will be able
to go back to the gym".
Now...it's not all about me. And sometimes that can make me cry.
So I know that I harbor that same greatness. But maybe right now it isn't
time for it to be on the front burner. Maybe now it's about me learning how
to be selfless and be of service and to realize that the universe doesn't
really revolve around me (dammit AGAIN!!!). I know it's probably easier for
me because I have this kid who is the apple of my eye and I get as much joy
watching her grow up as I would have illuminating my own ego for some petty
reason. Probably more.
But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to get that book published, had a
gallery show again or be on the "cover of the Rolling Stone" again. I
haven't progressed on the path to Nirvana THAT much, yet! But I'll keep
walking.
Something that comforts me when I'm really gnawing at the bit, thinking that
I deserve a better slice of pie than I currently have is:
*What do you do before enlightenment: Chop Wood, Carry Water.
and what do you do AFTER enlightenment: Chop Wood, Carry Water.*
