Over a decade ago, on a college campus nestled near the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Maggie O’Brien arrived at Professor Kathy Giuffre’s office with a bold plan.
O’Brien, now an artist, business owner and author, wanted to design her own major. According to Giuffre, this was an uncommon goal among the student body as it was known to be an arduous process that was rarely accepted by the school.
But O’Brien, born and raised in Belmont, is not the kind of person to let a challenge knock her down, Giuffre said of her former student.
“[O’Brien] has this great creativity, just wildly flowering creative ideas constantly coming out of her,” said Giuffre.
O’Brien’s major, creative writing for social change, was accepted. She took what she called experiential courses, trading stuffy classrooms for the outside world. Courses took her to Arizona and the U.S./Mexico border, and many other places, where she came face-to-face with stories that compelled her.
“I really felt like I had to learn from the world,” O’Brien said. “I’ve always sought … the road less traveled.”
O’Brien will journey further down unknown terrain by publishing her debut memoir “Two Birds One Stone.” It will be released in 12 slim volumes over the course of a year, with the first volume mailed to readers in September. Later on, she hopes to sell the memoir in Boston-area stores, including Belmont Books.
O’Brien referred to writing the book as “one big art project.” The cover illustrations were done by a friend, and O’Brien made the cover font out of her grandmother’s handwriting. She taught herself bookbinding and is making each copy by hand. Her memoir will be self-published through Planetarium Press, which she created as a way to maintain control over the creative process.
O’Brien always knew she wanted to write a book, saying “whether I do it at 30 or 72 years old, it doesn’t matter.” The time came to put pen to paper after weathering several storms throughout her 20s.
During her junior year at Colorado College, O’Brien was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“One domino fell into the next,” she said, as she began to face other chronic health challenges that brought everything to a standstill.
“I would say that life brought me to my knees,” she said.
During this time, she said she began to have inexplicable experiences, including what her website describes as “ a violent visitation by a very real ghost,” which is the driving story behind her memoir. This “mystical experience,” led to a realization that there was more to life than what she could see, she said.
“‘[Two Birds One Stone]’ is a story of pain, but I think pain is the gateway to becoming awake,” O’Brien said.
While she talks about her own art, she does not hesitate to weave other artists into the conversation. One poem in particular –– “Tincture” by the late Andrea Gibson –– had been floating around her mind recently.
“[The poem’s] message is about how, after we die, our spirits will look back and want to remember what it was like to have goosebumps, to feel pain,” O’Brien said, adding the poem profoundly impacted the way she viewed her health challenges.
“What I experienced, I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But I do believe that I wouldn’t take it back,” she added.
An Uncommon Path
Kathy Giuffre described O’Brien as “fiercely intelligent, but also on fire with this desire to make the world a better place.” There is an undeniable spark in the way O’Brien walks through the world, but its exact origin is difficult to pinpoint.
Perhaps it sparked in honor of her grandfather, an early thought leader behind the Peace Corps. His lifelong work to harness community as a tool to reform society shaped O’Brien’s vision of the world, she said.
Maybe the flame was lit at 16, when O’Brien left Belmont High School for a semester and studied abroad in Central America. Oor, when she bought a one-way ticket to Kathmandu, Nepal, living and working there for five months before starting college. Witnessing the impacts of United States political intervention on indigenous populations abroad was revelatory, she said.
O’Brien has taken a circuitous route through early adulthood –– teaching ceramics, outdoor education and working with college applicants. Her unconventional path inspired her to create Uncommon Futures, a “pathway counseling company” helping students navigate “college applications, gap year planning, & career exploration,” per the website.
As the specter of political, technical, and global change looms large over higher education, O’Brien said Uncommon Futures helps students chase a passion instead of molding themselves into societal expectations –– the same ones O’Brien has pushed back against for years.
“It’s such a valuable experience to understand yourself better,” O’Brien said.
“A Messenger Nonetheless”
Maggie O’Brien has traveled the world and seen the wonders up close. Pain and mystery have come to her doorstep. Where words often fail, she found plenty, enough for a book that tells the tale of a journey through the unimaginable.
She hopes readers of “Two Birds One Stone” will ask unanswered questions, widen their view of reality, and hold room for mystery.
O’Brien’s story is one of peaks, valleys and untrodden paths, but that uncommon landscape was where she found the language to share her story.
“I am just a small messenger,” she said, “but a messenger nonetheless.”
Maggie O’Brien’s memoir is available for pre-purchase on her website, magpieobrien.com. Sign up by Aug. 15 to receive the first installment.
For consultation with O’Brien’s pathway counseling company, Uncommon Futures, visit uncommonfutures.com.