I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sweep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt, pillars of sand
-Coldplay
If I were a monarch, it would have to be a king, or preferably, an emperor. Either Arthur or Charlemagne. Actually, in the olden times, I would have liked to be Pope. Complete spiritual and temporal dominion.
Being a Queen would not quite cut it. I like The Empress and all, don't get me wrong, but I like the old-fashioned kind of power. Direct, undisputed, king power. Queens have a different kind of power, which is fine, and being Queen would definitely be better than being, say, the Head Janitor, but, if I could choose, I would be King.
There are so many ways to have power. Money. Beauty. Youth. Connections. Physical strength. Love.
I had it all, I lost it all, and I never knew what I had until I lost it. That sounds dramatic. Pluto in Capricorn is dramatic. And it's sad. Endings are always sad, even if they're inevitable, and expected, and far overdue. Who doesn't feel sad at a breakup, or a move, or one of those big life changes?
As to those, I detested puberty. I can barely stand to think of it even now. One day, I was running around without a care in the world, and then, bam. Blood and gore and brassieres and cellulite, and strange men standing too close in museum lines, and a lot of shit that I did not understand or want to. And that book, "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret" which they forced us at gunpoint to read, just made me sick. The bitch didn't know when she had it good.
I haven't hit menopause yet, but I'm sure that will be sad too. My friends who are there already, or almost, are in denial, and I suppose I will be too, especially since I never had kids. I never had a particularly strong desire to, but I always thought that it would happen, somehow, in extremis, and it didn't. At least, not in this lifetime. I'm sure I've had plenty of kids in other lifetimes and maybe this lifetime is just a time-out. I've always avoided the step-parent thing too. It seems fraught with difficulties.
I was sad when I got married, sad when I got divorced, sad every time I left one country or one man for the next, but I did it, because there's only one way to go in this life, and that is forward. This year, I got sick, and ended up leaving everything in California. I didn't have the strength to deal with it, but there was also some weird streak of illumination that was telling me that the losses were the whole point.
For what profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and loseth his own soul?
I had the whole world in my hands, but I had gotten lost, somehow, down one of those rabbit holes it used to amuse me to explore, always so sure of my own power, of God's protective presence, but in one of those rabbit holes I encountered the void, and I got lost, like Carlos Castaneda in his dreams.
I didn't know up from down, or light from dark, and I was even getting used to living down there, away from the light, and the air.
Evil exists, is the point, although not necessarily in the way you imagine it. In fact, it's almost never the way you imagine it, because then you would recognize it and avoid it. Evil always looks exactly like good, except better. So you keep messing with it, sure that the good must be there, just below the surface, and it isn't. Somebody described eating Domino's pizza as eating more and more of it to try and find the flavor you know must be there, but isn't, and in the end you have a bellyful of pizza and a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. That's kind of the deal with evil. And evil isn't so much an active kind of wickedness as it is a lack of, well, good.
So God, like any indulgent but responsible parent, yanked me out of the rabbit hole and grounded me indefinitely, and here I am.
And I've said these things before, more or less, and it's not like I want to flog a dead horse, but what am I supposed to do if Chris Martin always puts the way I feel into words? Well, not always, there are a few songs on the new CD that I skip, but on their other CD's, each song brings an immediate memory of a person or an event in my life.
My pillars of sand have crumbled, but maybe I can use the rubble to fill the potholes in the castle driveway, so all is not lost.
Viva la vida!
