Most of the time, I fill my days with all sorts of tasks for fear that doing anything less than everything means that I'm wasting my life, not earning my keep. I've always been a sucker for the instant gratification of checking something off my to-do list, but these days, it's grown to an addiction. For me, it's incredibly easy to get stuck in that frenetic, always-doing Martha mindset. The more time I spend there, the harder it is to live a fulfilling creative life, where so much depends on subtle intricacies and great introspection. I know that I need to spend time cultivating some part of myself that's more Mary. While I don't expect to get rid of the Beth who needs to accomplish 1,001 things every day to be happy and fulfilled, at least I hope to allow Beth the creator more time to simply exist. Sometimes, I want to sit back and remember all the moments that brought me to this novel, which has become so much a piece of myself, and to know that, no matter what becomes of it, it is all enough.
There's Nothing Ahead
Lovers think they're looking for each other,
but there's only one search: wandering
this world is wandering that,
both inside one
transparent sky. In here there is
no dogma and no heresy.
The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said
or did about the future. Forget the future.
I'd worship someone who could do that.
On the way you may want to look back, or not.
But if you can say, There's nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Stretch your arms
and take hold of the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both,
you don't belong with us.
When one of us gets lost,
is not here, he must be inside us. There's no
place like that anywhere in the world.
Rumi
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