www.myspace.com/darleneanitascott
Full moon and my body’s behaving accordingly:
Lethargy and insomnia at the same time (imagine that), the dubious and nagging insinuation of migraine, an incorrigible appetite and that mad scientist creative urge that will not be satiated until I have a bedroom floor full of doo-dads and what-nots and some reconstructed summer shirts.
Full moon and I’m acting like it:
All maternal-like; pregnant with possibility. Gestation? Whenever it decides. But so far I have predicted my personal 5k will be the weekend of June 7th which I know is not coincidental really although it felt like it when I realized that the date I had decided on (just before I checked the moon chart to get a handle on my recent behaviors) corresponds with the next full moon.
I haven’t decided what my prize will be seeing as though I will be the winner no matter how slow I am because it’s my 5k. No fundraising, standing in a registration line, or looking tortured and tired before a cheering (or are they jeering)crowd. Just me, my Sauconys, and a soca-laced soundtrack turned up to deaf.
The competitive thing has never been my bag; hence my 5k and not one of the established ones. I am not interested in what I can do better than someone else. I am not even all that keen on goals period. In fact the latter is about as competitive as I get. I have this list of things-I-have-not-done- yet and I am in a constant challenge with myself to make that list smaller.
Which makes me quite the contrary writer. I want to be published and to get grants and residencies that validate that publication; be anonymous by face but such a common name in industry shorts that people take to calling me familiarly by my first name only. Like, “darlene’s gonna be reading at the 92nd Street Y and the Bowery when she gets in the City.”
But I’m just not interested in the competition part. The part that is so much about being better than someone else. Which, in case you didn’t know in publishing industry, is the equivalent of me liking IHOP and you preferring Denny’s—subjective as a teenager deciding a TRL top ten.
I tell myself that I am no more cut out for this than the Boston Marathon.
But the dry erase marker on the mirror says, “I am Kenyan; I run fast.” And I laugh at the sloppy blue smear of affirmation/comic. And when I think of it while I’m actually running, well more like jogging, I get a short lived high that actually does make me run a tad faster because I’m not thinking about the fact that I still have 1.5 miles to go despite my lazy legs’ protest.
Sometimes in the middle of/because we are still breathing we get to become really great things like mamas and daddies, teachers and coaches, artists, dancers, entertainers, and even lesser or more celebrated poets.
Breathe into your full moon this Friday. Watch what happens.
darlene anita scott 