happy birthday to me.
actually to this blog. [my birthday was last month]
it’s been four years today.
four years???!!! FOUR YEARS?
it was jeanette and am i ever grateful to her for creating this space for me. a muse indeed. she called me up and gave me a login and a password and then i started writing and the very first post was this. (this link is not working, but if you want to read my first post it happened January 10, 2006).
ugh. did i really write that? say that? oh my how we grow and change and learn to let go and not compare and write from the heart and travel between all lines and boundaries and shift as fast as desert sand in a dry wind. it was true, i felt very misplaced in Scottsdale. but on that same note, looking back and seeing with different eyes, that particular woman in the store could have ended up as my best friend. probably not. but maybe. and i do remember at the time, being so lonely and wishing a deeper connection with her. i felt she had nothing to give but perhaps i didn’t give her a chance. and my feelings towards her, the whole place, had to do with my longing for community. wishing for her manicured and lovely hand to reach our and say, ‘let me watch your little one while you go change the poop out of the big ones pants.’
that’s all i really wanted and if she had i wouldn’t have even noticed if she was wearing prada or a gorilla suit. it was easy for me to mock her by her cover, though. did i really want to dig deep and see how alone i was? and even further, how really what i was doing was shutting people out. the moment i moved there, i was ready to leave and unconsciously i completely isolated myself from what was truly around me. that’s not way to live in the moment.
it’s so easy to look and judge by the masks we wear. but we know, don’t we, that it’s in the heart of the heart of the person where we will find their living and beating truth. and it’s in the eye of the beholder to find that. we who look and judge can decide to look and love.
i will never forget reading this post, and thinking, oh my god!!! he’s making fun of a profession, a profession to close to my heart. it made me sad and angry and depressed for a while. and then i had an a-ha moment. it was his way of expressing his own insecurities, fears and passion. he wanted to be enough for his wife. and he was enough. and then much later i came to the realization, by shifting my vision of him, i saw something else. we had a small thread in common. he was really valuing an unassisted birth ideology, he saw the beauty of it being just him and his wife, undisturbed by any other force. he knew all they needed was each other. instead of just saying that, he got his point a cross in another way, which initially, offended me. i just had to change my vision to recreate it. and now looking back at my first post i see it. that’s exactly what i did.
i have changed a lot in these past five years. my writing has, as well. the more i shut off my brain and allow my heart to be the thinking organ, the better it feels, the better it reads, the less it offends. my story is my story, but i don’t need to compare my story to others. i don’t need to feel better, or prove myself correct by placing others in a shadow, just so i can mine my own light. and really i write less to be heard and more to just connect with the world. i choose my heart as the cord that brings me to you. our brains are all hardwired differently and suppose if i used more of mine, i would be less understood. but our hearts? i think they are all made of universal love. and with that, we aren’t so different.
i am proud of myself. i am proud how often i have come here. excited by how many people visit and read and just allow me flash moments, totally unthoughtful and messy. i am so thankful for support and encouragement. i am so grateful for all the stories i receive in return. the gift of words is transformed like metal to gold.
it’s amazing the friends i have met through this space, people i have never met and people i have met because of first connecting here. . people who have become my best friends, closest sisters, creative partners. i would love to list them all right now, but you know who you are. and thank you. and these same people are more than friends, they are my peers. who would have thought there were so many brilliant writers out there, self-publishing? i mean deeply brilliant and heartfelt, soulful and spiritually, smart and real? i often google this: literary bloggers. because i am always looking for more good reads. And you know what i get? blogs about the literary business! HA! No. We should all magically appear when I google that. All of us. I know people who can write about changing a diaper or breatfeeding a baby or organizing a refrigerator or pan frying a salmon or changing a tire or planting lettuce seeds and watching a babe be born and the way it’s written deserves a Pulitzer. But it doesn’t happen and it it doesn’t matter. We all keep writing. Because the writing is the only reason we do it.
Like giving birth, nothing can really come in the way. A baby will be born, regardless. The creation can’t be stopped.
Giving thanks to all of it: the space, the voice, the commitment, the readers, the lovers, the magicians, the community, the sirens, the electricians, the musicians, the hermits, the social butterflies. the I am so blessed. And wherever the words come from, because I can’t claim to invent them or own them, that force bows down in gratitude, as well.
Here’s to another four years.
[and the talented jeanette, who created this space for me is making me a new one. a big girl one. one that is MY NAME! now as much as i love my name, there is something to be said to have a nice short name as a domain name. like lucy jones. or sue brown. but mine is not. so sorry. hope you’ll remember it. i will let you know when www.marybethbonfiglio.com is indeed alive with word alchemy and the power of sound.}
self portrait on my real birthday. 12.21.09. thirty-six years old.
Magic. Magic. Magic. Lets get this new space rockin’ and rollin’ shall we??
Comment by Jeanette — January 10, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
Can’t wait to see the new space. Happy Belated Birthday. xo
Comment by Debbie — January 11, 2010 @ 12:36 am
Yeah, can’t wait for the new site. Happy Blogoversary… I got lost in the links you shared.
Comment by Stacy (Mama-Om) — January 11, 2010 @ 6:06 am
Too Wonderful.
Comment by marinah — January 11, 2010 @ 6:38 am
Creation can’t be stopped. You cannot be stopped. Celebrating you!! And this space, and the new space to come, the void that will be filled with your light and beauty and shadow and amazingness. Your blog is one year older than my blog, but they should definitely go out for birthday drinks together soon.
Comment by Jena — January 11, 2010 @ 5:18 pm
Love the words from YOUR heart.
And you are a gorgeously stunning 36!
xo
Comment by MereMortal — January 11, 2010 @ 6:12 pm
Heppy Birthday! I can’t wait to see your new site!
Comment by sumaeS — January 15, 2010 @ 2:57 am
VERY belated Happy Birthday, MB! What beauty, raw truth and gorgeousness we find here. It’s a blessing.
I am glad Mia is home with you and loving it. xo
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