benefits of scorpio season stings

never thought kneeing myself in the face would help the painting process

one morning, i pulled on jean shorts from the floor and felt an unfamiliar pinch. “ow, ow.” i put my hand in my shorts and felt it again. “what the fack!?” i flung them off in a panic. juss and i watched for a silent moment, expecting a spider to scurry out, but something much more sinister slowly revealed itself.

juss and i shrieked and tippy-toe danced around the three-inch brown scorpion that emerged. “we can’t kill it, i’m already cursed!”, i yelled as juss trapped it with a popcorn bowl. local legend is that scorpions travel in pairs, so if you harm one, its partner-in-crime will come for you. so juss hesitantly tossed it off the porch while i hid behind the screen door. “just yeet it!!”

luckily it wasn’t the poisonous yellow kind, so i took some ibuprofen and waited for the goosebumps to go away. as we laughed a few minutes later, juss looked at me, still shocked. “you can handle three scorpion stings but not a hot kitchen?”

a few days later, i tried to catch a rogue wave too late and got pummeled. i clocked myself in the face with my knee. mid-tumble, my first thought was, “really? how does that even happen?” my ego’s more bruised than my eye socket.

said self-inflicted bruising - a metaphor?

as the salt water tosses me in circles and burns my nostrils, my mind finally quiets. the running narrative ceases to exist as the present moment slaps me in the face.

later at home, i started painting a scorpion on a beach - casually thinking i might as well capture the way this tiny creature’s mere existence had rattled us to the core. with a quiet brain, i was able to study its power rather than shirking from it. this is the first time in a while that i’d painted from instinct.

now i want to ask the scorpion how to find the calm again without another sting or black eye.

scorpion study wip - small creature, large impact