Digging.
Through the mud.
The layers of silt –of guilt.
Through decades,
I fell.
Free falling.
Life’s calling,
Mother!
Circling back around.
Unfamiliar,
Yet known ground.
Like a vague, distant song.
Once sung.
The melody rising up
From this buried, dusty instrument.
A song so familiar,
Yet nearly forgotten.
I am listening.
I am quiet.
I am writing.
I am found.
Roseann Pascale – rapascale@gmail.com
I wish to attend the Sun’s writing retreat because I seek to grow as a writer and to contribute to the dominant discourse of society, both locally and globally. I look forward to learning from others who are dedicated to the craft of writing, and in sharing our experience of being human. I believe as we share our stories, we come to know ourselves in the reflection of others.
The current state of mass journalism is at best, troublesome. The Sun is an important voice in countering what are often shallow representations of humanity, through meaningful, rich and restorative stories that illustrate the complexities of being human.
I come to this opportunity, as a mature woman who is dusting off her pen. I wrote my first existential poetry at 9 years of age, having been influenced by the novel “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”, by Richard Bach. The theme of the book, and the poetry it inspired, set the stage for a lifetime of introspection. The seeds of inquiry were planted, and a desire to understand the meaning of life took root.
I continued to journal and write poetry as a young adult. While studying filmmaking as an undergrad, I took part in a screenwriting course. I clearly remember a moment of reflection, where I concluded that as a young woman, I did not yet know enough about life to write anything of consequence. I assured myself that when I knew what I had to say, I would say it – in writing. That time has come.
As is often true for many of us, life’s journey into adulthood brought obligations and responsibilities. Career and domesticity took precedence over creative endeavors. During the first half of my life, I worked as a television producer. I also married, divorced, and raised two children as a single mother.
In 2009, disillusioned by the vapid content of the programs I was producing, I left the television industry and embarked on a new career. I returned to graduate school to become a counselor and therapist. My guiding mantra at the time was, “I want who I am, to be what I do”. I continue to refine and pursue a congruent sense of self, which includes honoring the writer in me.
Now that my children are grown, much of the responsibility associated with being a caregiver is behind me. As I find my way in this new and unfamiliar territory, I feel I am being reintroduced to myself, both as a woman, and as a writer.
The following poem was born of this experience:
Digging.
Through the mud.
The layers of silt –of guilt.
Through decades,
I fell.
Free falling.
Life’s calling,
Mother!
Circling back around.
Unfamiliar,
Yet known ground.
Like a vague, distant song.
Once sung.
The melody rising up
From this buried, dusty instrument.
A song so familiar,
Yet nearly forgotten.
I am listening.
I am quiet.
I am writing.
I am found.
My writing centers around my experience of life and my interpretation of the world around us. I am politically active and seek to add to the communal conversation, a purpose I believe is aligned with the editorial mission of The Sun.
As a result of leaving the known and stepping into uncertainty, I have had to endure financial challenges. I continue to be the primary support for my youngest daughter and myself, and work as a freelance writer, editor and per diem therapist. Many things are out of reach for me due to financial constraints, but I trust that this is part of the process of change and growth.
My path as a writer has led me to this opportunity. I would be honored to be among the writers attending the Wildacres retreat. I look forward to developing my craft, contributing to the magazine, and building community with others who share the same vision.
I would be grateful to receive a scholarship to attend the workshop.
Roseann Pascale
954-258-6045
rapascale@gmail.com
A time for mediation and a time for revolution.
One look at my facebook page and you’ll see it. My two sides on display. Finding the balance between rising above the noise, and fighting against the machine is a feat I have yet to master.
Thought leaders such as Eckhart Tolle speak of the play of forms. This Samsara world from which there is no escape. When I am in this place, I see that I am of most benefit by sharing the beauty in the world, the light, the hopeful nation. But so often this seems to be a very first world perspective. Much like that game, where you add, in bed to the end of the fortune cookie saying, I find myself reading memes and adding “unless you are poor”. There is this airy fairy, first world perspective about growth, self realization, abundance and the like. All that is well and good if you have resources, are educated, and have access to facebook to see the memes.
For most of the world, these platitudes are just that. Empty and void of any real power. Martin Luther King was among the most enlightened of beings, yet he took to the streets to facilitate changes. Ghandi is another example of an enlightened one taking action in the world. Sometimes, its not enough to just mediate, visualize. Sometimes, we need a god damn revolution.
We are in one of those times. This is what makes Bernie so appealing. Sure, I have my doubts and no, I am not a political analyst or scientist. But you don’t have to be a political scientist to see the impacts of a profit driven economy on the quality of life for the worlds citizens. And here in the states we have it easier than most.
To blog about...Otherhood. - this truly is an amazing process of remembering, reclaiming, finding ourselves again as women. And seeing, feeling so astutely the grooves that have resulted from years of puttin gothers first, survival mode I step forward knowing I am taking right action, yet I also am astutely aware of the baggage i am carrying. Each step I take, is like walking across some imaginary bridge, that is swaying over an imaginary river...each step that I make successfully feels like a huge relief, today just emailing a potential practice opportunity was such as step I started sobbing. The sobs came not really from happiness, but more from relief, from fear unrealized. Because taking these steps feels so momentous, are so new..that there is a great amount of tension in the preparation and thought so that when I finally do it, its such an emotional reach. Naturally there is also the tears of joy of finally doing things for me alone. This is such an insane time, it is hard to believe who I was, how I operated, how I kept that house running and raised those girls. I was not conscious, I know. But i was doing the best I could. I worked so hard...to keep all those balls in the air..it was all I could do to not let them fall...I did it well, but there really was little time for relaxation or reflection. It was go go go. Even when working at rainbow, there was always an agenda, taking classes for my masters degree...I GOT A FUCKING MASTERS DEGREE while working full time and raising a daughter on 35K a year. I was so focused on just getting it done. And here I sit alone so much of the time, I have all this time to myself. I am busy with things...but nothing near what I used to do...driving Olivia to school, myself to work, dinner, lunches, dance class, competitions. i do wish I had kept a calendar at least..it would be interesting to see now.
So...the trip into motherhood...really is into otherhood. Serving others. Giving your life to others for 20 years. That's what it is. Not complaining, but this is what we do, at least this is what I did. They came first for 20 years. No doubt about it. I didnt think for me, i thought for we, and for them first then I. If it didnt' work for we, it didnt' work. from motherhood....my otherhood.
alone, done alone. excited yet terrified. afraid of myself, Faith, must have faith.
01/15/19
Devotion – The Tao of Motherhood and Caregiving
With Madeline:
The assault of the senses – the change in daily exposure to media
The surrender of self interest – continually privileging the other’s needs
The uselessness of reason – when other is unable to comprehend of empathize
The myopia of comfort – when pain is primary experience and no others are available
THe dissolution of opinion – because whats the point?
The sacrifice of taste
Waking up in anticipation of crisis – hypervigilance
The demands of service
Devotion of service
I am consumed mostly by fear.
I fear the world
My children are growing up with a fearful mother.
I need to be more real to have them open to me.
Social networking IS living on the internet. They don’t know each other, but from the profile they can get to know each other or decide if they want to chat. They see how many friends they have in common, to figure out where they go to school, what hobbies they have….so then when they actually meet, they kind of know each other. It is LIFE and socializing online, often live.
R.Pascale
I’d like to fall in love again---really, I would.
But it’s been so long, and I think I may have forgotten how.
To care.
To share.
To relax.
To open.
To reveal.
To be real.
I have been single for 7 years now. This is a curiosity to me. Prior to this period, I had never before been without a lover.
The cause is not entirely clear to me, although it stems from circumstance and choice. Perhaps it has something to do with being burnt out from single motherhood---sole provider-hood. Add to that a career change, and yes, maybe I’d simply been too busy for love.
Although I had entered into a new relationship after my divorce, I was never all in. Somewhere deep down I knew that the woman I was as a mother, was not necessarily the woman I would be when my children were grown. I didn’t want my romantic relationship to revolve around parenting, I wanted it to revolve around passion.
I put my heart on hold and immersed myself in a career change, deciding I would wait until I was truly “single” before I’d start dating again
We are amazingly adaptive creatures. When we can’t get something we need, we find ways to work around it. As the years went by, I convinced myself that I had evolved past “romantic love”. I dedicated myself to scholarly and spiritual pursuits, thinking romance and passion were not essential, or even conducive to my growth. I laugh now at the ridiculousness of it, and at the same time am fascinated by the ways in which the ego will conjure up stories to protect itself.
During the lean years of single motherhood, I had become lean as well. With my children now grown, and the load lightened, my body is filling out. Like air filling a deflated raft, life is coming back into me. As my body becomes healthier, it is remembering sensuality, passion and desire. it wants to be touch, to feel pleasure at the touch of another.
My heart, which had been filled by the daily care of children, is longing for more.
As my body fills out, my energy is projecting into the universe. I haven’t done anything particularly different, but somehow men are appearing in my orbit.
The men are tentative and non-committal, surely a reflection of my own energy. Perhaps they are reading the energetic signals I am emanating: Proceed with Caution: Unfamiliar Territory Ahead.
Which leads me to my new friend.
We are neighbors. He and I met quite by chance. In story straight out of a fairy tale, he rescued me along a flooded street and drove me to my car. As I crawled out his passenger window, hoisting myself into my car, he shouted out his apartment number. I returned the gesture. To my surprise, he called me from the security guard’s desk and asked permission to get my number, “maybe we could meet up some time”.
We became fast friends. When we are together, conversation flows easily. We connect intellectually, spiritually, culturally; an unusual circumstance, considering the building we live in is filled with retirees and immigrants. It’s a bit like finding a diamond underneath your doormat.
That was one year ago. I wish I could say we fell madly in love, but we all know it is never that simple.
Instead, slowly our relationship crawls along. In what was an indirect conversation about us, he said he was mostly looking for companionship, and of course, I quickly concurred.
The unfortunate truth is there is little sexual chemistry between us, in part, because neither of us is putting it out there. He is a brainiac, literally a genius; the consequence of which mean he has zero swag. It seems all of his testosterone has been dedicated to his intelligence rather than sexual prowess.
For my part, I have tucked my sensuality neatly away. I am quite passionate as a lover. My sexual self has an on/off switch. Once I am turned on, you get all of me. I don’t do tepid.
The problem is, I am starting to fall for him. He’s on my mind throughout my day. I want to get closer to him. I am not sexually attracted to him, but I want to be.
As my heart begins to crack open and love begins to flood empty chambers, I see that it has been broken. For the past 7 years or so I have been pretending that I do not want love, I do not need intimacy. I’ve been lying. I’ve been hiding.
The longing and heartbreak that this potential relationship is provoking is astounding. I find myself in tears, because the ache in my heart to feel loved again, to share my love again, is so intense. And it has been so long since I have felt this way.
Getting close to this person is pricking at the surface of my heart and it is threatening to burst. I have been reminded that my heart is had the capacity to hold an enormous amount of love.
I know that although painful, this is cause for celebration. In the words of Dr. Frankenstein…It is ALIVE!
However, opening our hearts leads inevitably to vulnerability…yuck! I don’t want to be vulnerable! I certainly don’t want to be rejected. This man calls me every night, he wants to see me every day. I imagine he is waiting for me to give him the go signal, yet I hesitate. I don’t think it would be fair to him for me to open the door and then not invite him in, and if I were to open that door, and he did not walk through it, I would be crushed.
I know enough to know that this is not about this man. When we have such strong feelings, there’s a good chance we are projecting our unresolved emotional stuff of past relationships onto our potential new partners.
When relationships don’t work out, regardless of who ends them, they are experienced as abandonments to the heart. All the heart knows that something it once cared for deeply is gone, and it grieves.
The longing itself comes from attachment and desire---the carnal, secular love of a human being, and the pain that comes from the lack of it.
My mind tells my heart it needs to relax, to let go of these fear based projections---to reach for the spiritual, universal love of another, which seeks not to possess, but rather is unattached, fluid. Love which allows people in and out of our experience without the need for permanence. With this comes freedom from suffering that comes from such attachment.
Although these are worthy and enlightened aims, my wiser self knows this advice is also my ego looking for ways to avoid feeling these feelings. The ego can be quite sly, using spiritual principles for its own purposes. In this case, to lift my awareness above these feelings of longing would be to avoid my human nature, rather than leaning in to experience it.
As the saying goes, The heart wants what it wants. Alas, I am merely mortal.
“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection… and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals. ~ George Orwell
I want to run, to avoid these uncomfortable feelings. I see now why people ghost other people, it’s too hard to face the ambivalence, the heart ache, so much easier to just disappear.
What leads us when we are lost? In the past, I clung to professional growth and ambition to guide me. At this time in my life, I choose to let love lead.
Like a beacon in the darkness, Love’s light continually calls to us. It’s up to us to raise our eyes and follow its beam. If we are courageous, it will lead us into its welcoming arms---and with luck, into the welcoming arms of another. The warmth of an embrace. The caring of another’s heart, the sharing of another’s soul. This is now what I long for.
I am lifting my heart to the heavens, and am facing the uncertainty. I am reaching for Love. I can’t yet say it is with open arms, but they are beginning to un-cross.
