Dreaming of Joy

Her thoughts spirals down a staircase of her youth opening into an abandoned store filled with racks and shelves of forgotten joy. She flips through the clearance with hope filling her purse that hangs from one arm while an old, tired shirt dangles loosely from her other. She is flipping and flipping and the colors of the fabrics merge together like the years -- there is the small, pink housecoat, the purple jumper she stained with blackberries, the yellow birthday dress her mother made for her when she turned eight, maybe nine -- and the colors dance into her memory. She lets go of the worn, tired shirt and as it falls to the floor the room begins spinning and spinning and spinning sweeping her into the brilliant colors of her existence, folding and unfolding, like a kaleidoscope twirling towards the sun.

Mobile Mysticism

If the entire world was a forest, it might be said that I live in the shade under a very small tree. I drive where very few stoplights dictate traffic flow. I dawdle in a place where moving from one end of town to the other requires little in the way of my life expectancy. The lackadaisical approach, frankly, is just to pass the time. Where I am is not physically beautiful. The macro has much to be desired but looking closer this tiny bit of world is magnificent. It is a small collection of people of various shapes, sizes, sounds and hearts whom I have chosen to open up the real of mine. Warm and inviting, I lean into names and faces who have become so familiar they feel like my old beat up flannels. It is a place that knows everyone's business. Public and private. It's a place that knows mine. And I have come into the business of Myself. Granted, it doesn't pay well yet but I like my boss. Moreover, I like the love that those names and faces invest in this selfish venture of mine. It is here that I have found my connection to the larger playful Me. That expansive child running wild about the Universe taking this brief moment in this lifetime to stop and rest in the shade under this very small tree. Where we head next is selfishly up to Me.

Tenfold: #4

I have been writing plays since I was five years old. Somewhere in the archives of my mother's bedroom closet there is probably the original Little Bunny Foo-Foo script. Sadly, my spelling has not improved since then but anyone with common sense knows Litel is Little and Bune is Bunny. I might mention that my handwriting hasn't seen any more development since those chunky little fingers put crayon to grocery sack. Anyway, not surprising, in the time of that writing, I had very little self-criticism. I liked all of it. I was marvelous. Later, I tapped into astrology as guide to character development. It was a short cut. A fun way to cheat. I wrote for myself and was enjoying it. But, somewhere, my mind got in the way. Or rather, I decided that I needed the minds of others to measure my marvelousness. Oddly, with my Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Pluto in Virgo, I had no business asking for criticism. If anyone knows anything about the stars, a Virgo can be very critical with her most vulnerable subject being herself. So, upon hearing the minds of others, I found myself no longer hopping through the forest, scooping up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head. It was I who had been bopped on the head. And it hurt. And any truly wounded writer resorts to poetry. Which I did. And I thought it was marvelous and showed it to no one just to keep it that way. Then the most extraordinary thing happened. My son was born. And in the mix of his 13 years of living in this physical world the way he does, he has gifted me an understanding of behavioral analysis, particularly, in predicting his wants and needs. And what is playwriting but the study of human behavior? At least the type of stories I desire to tell. Without going into the details of reinforcement contingencies, extinction procedures, or shaping maladaptive behaviors, it's safe to say I have some sense of human motivation. Human desire. The stuff of creation. And, recently, I went back to the drawing board on the heels of my two fire signs in Jupiter and Saturn inviting the passion of my Scorpion Mars along with the compassion of my Scorpion Neptune to join the party. Translated: I forgave myself for not being perfect and just began to write. I've even used crayons...