Flying Backward

When I was a kid I used to have flying dreams all of the time.  Gliding through the sky while my stomach flip flopped and right before I would go splat my eyes would open.  Sometimes life can make me feel like I'm flying backward.  I want that feeling of being high above it all, weightless, where nothing matters.  Because walking can just be so damn muddy.  Trudge, trudge, trudge.  So I just opt to fly as much as possible in the direction that I want to go in but sometimes I just do it backward like I am doing the backstroke in a pool.  I know there is a place that I want to be but I don't want to deal with what I have to pass to get there.  The agendas, the empty promises, the slick words and fake smiles I could do without but it's par for the course.  I prefer the moments when a friend grabs my phone and downloads a song then plops my headphones in my ears and says "this will help you along the way".  Then I listen to the song on repeat and repeat and repeat. I am grateful.  Grateful for the gems.  You have to mine for them though and the dirt messes up my hair and scuffs my boots.

I remember when I managed a horrible restaurant in Silverlake.  And as a sidenote restaurant management for an artist is like purgatory, absolute torture!  So I hired some of my really cute guy friends to tend bar and that made it bearable.  It was like I worked for a bunch of thugs and I had to constantly go up against them on a daily basis.  These people were the worst of the bunch.  Like characters I had read about in books but never met in person.  When I was a my wit's end with my head was spinning and I was questioning everything..why, why, why????? is this happening to me!?, I received one of the most eloquent and beautiful emails ever from one of my busboys.  Now regardless of what you believe in..God, Buddha, Jehovah, The Dollar or retail therapy...none of it mattered because he wrote from his truth and it struck mine.  Here's a bit: " God is not a father that cares about our earthly success, but that we try and in our journey grow closer to the things of him. Love, Joy, peace, forbearance, Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. (All fruits, I see being made ripe in you). That being said I have seen nothing but you doing the absolute best job that anyone could do in your shoes. Don't allow your fruits to be robbed."

Cue my jaw dropping. How could he see all that in me at a time when I felt so invisible? A gem. I had found another gem. And it didn't come from a director that I wanted to work with, a cute guy that I wanted to kiss, or some boss that I wanted to please. It came from someone and somewhere when I least expected it. This moment changed the game for me and I quit that lousy job and remembered what I was made of and where I came from. Virtues do mean something in this wild world. The right people will notice at the right time when you need it the most.

Flying backward is like kissing upside down or washing your hair in a bowl of spaghetti. It doesn't make sense, it feels funny but it gets you where you need to go. Keep moving.