CHANGE.
12 years ago, I sat in a friend’s minivan. She was going off to college the next day and it was probably going to be the last time we would see each out for months. 2 lives about to spiral into two completely different directions, for one it was collegiate life, for the other it was living at home, hitting up community college, and serving cheese fries. I think you know which one was this here writer.
My friend looked me in the eye, a little anxious, just as I was about to leave her van, and said, “Do you think things are going to change?” And I responded, “Yeah, everything’s going to change.”
Then we hugged, I left, and everything changed. It always does.
And I’m not going to lie, at the time, I don’t think I even believed it. It could have been some unknown insight, or I could have just been trying to sound cool. It was a long time ago. So much has happened since then.
The other day, I sat across from another friend at brunch, and I told her, “I don’t think that every one can change. Some people, I don’t believe can change.” She responded, “I don’t believe that at all, I can’t believe that. Everyone can change, they just to have really want to.”
I, then, cited my Mother who, I didn’t think was capable of change. My friend gave me this face, and then my mind blew when I realized that I was being Supremely stupid, of course my Mom was capable of change. Because for better or worse, everything is changing, always, even if it’s just a little, even my Mom. I just don’t want to deal with those changes, and I don’t want to deal with people who refuse to change the way you want them, the way you think they should. Of course, you can’t control change.
Change is a cruel bitch for sure. From the minute we’re born until the moment we die, and even far beyond that day, we are changing. It’s just that it’s so hard to deal with it, because change is nearly uncontrollable. It’s like when you’re in a sailboat out at sea. You’re always going somewhere, and yeah, you can try to control it, but damn if those winds and those waves aren’t going to sometimes have a mind of it’s own. And when they decide to take control, all your plans are screwed. They change your life and you change with it.
CONTROL GETS SLAPPED IN THE FACE BY CHANGE
I sat in a theater with a 22-year-old graduate that didn’t know who Warren Beatty was, and we were chatting. He asked me how I had made it. Mentally, I said, “Who said I made it?” I responded to myself, silently saying, “Oh right, I’m still here, so maybe I did succeed. Somehow.” Either way, I looked over at this kid, because he wanted advice, and I gave him my Blinko analogy.
For those unfamiliar with the Price Is Right’s Blinko game, it is this fantastic game where you climb up to the top of a giant board that is lined with spikes. At the bottom of this board is like five options for prizes, and you are given a disc to drop into the top of this spike maze. Once you pick your starting point, you drop the chip in and it goes off hitting all these spikes and switching directions until it gets to the bottom. The sad truth of Blinko is that it doesn’t matter where you put the disc in, it’s going to go wherever it wants to. No rhyme. No reason.
I told this 22-year-old dude with a weak handshake, “Getting into the film industry is like blinko. You come out to LA, you put your disc in, thinking you can have some control over where it’s going to go, where you are going to go, and then it just ends up going wherever the hell it wants to. And then you get to the bottom and you’re there. Life just happens.”
He responded, like most people, “Huh, that’s an interesting analogy. So you’re saying that you really don’t have any control over what happens out here.” And I said, “Yeah, but (And then came some simple realistic advice) if you do want to try to control things, you could do this, this, and this.”
I think he liked this, this, and this more than the Blinko analogy. And you know, I don’t blame him. Feeling like you don’t have any control over what happens to you can be awful, horrifying. But I’ve been around the block long enough to know that you can start out wanting to be a writer and you end up a Producer, or you can start of wanted to be a Producer and you end up a Sales Clerk, or you start out wanting to be a Production Designer and you end up Director, or a Mother, or sadly or happily, you don’t end up being anything at all.
Being alive means changing. Life demands it. His dreams may change. They may not change.
My dreams have and they haven’t all at the same time. And sometimes I think that my dreams really aren’t even what’s important, sometimes it’s just being alive, just being on the Blinko board that really matters.
TRAVEL YOUNG MAN, TRAVEL, AND LET ALL YOUR THOUGHTS AND CARES BE FREE
Oh if I could do it all over again, I might, the road trip I mean. But you know what, well, if I hadn’t gone through that trip, I might not have been inspired to have these thoughts that I have now, which I relate to you in a moment.
At the beginning of the road trip, I sat in a friend’s room, staring at Tarot cards, and I asked her a question about a recurring dilemma that I had in my life, which I will unfairly not share with you, and those cards said, “TRAVEL.” I said, “Um, what do you mean?” And the Tarot cards, because they can’t talk, really, responded again, “TRAVEL.” And I said, ah for the love OF GOD! This is so not fair. I wanted a damn answer.
On my trip, every town was a destination and at my worst moments, getting there was all I could think of, and at my best moments I didn’t care at all about getting there, I was careless free of everything, just me, my music, the wind, and what lay before my eyes. It was beautiful.
I would say that about 1/4 of my trip was living in these moments. Moments of pure living. Of bliss. Of freedom.
Most of the time, I wanted a coffee. I wanted to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be alone. I just wanted a bed to sleep in. I just wanted to be home.
Of course, I was always home. I had everything I needed. I just couldn’t see it. I spent 3/4 of the time wanting something I didn’t have. Silly me.
Near the end of the trip, I was in a New Orleans Voodoo shop. Real Voodoo shop and I was finishing up getting a Voodoo Tarot card reading and all the cards had eerily reflected my adventures and in the order that I had taken them. Or maybe they represented the future. Or maybe my entire life. You never know with the cards. Either way, a Gentleman was there, he was wearing all black, and had a long ponytail. He was kind of like a ponytailed, black clothes wearing, Nathan Fillian (I shit you not). Oh and he was psychic, or at least claimed to be. He and the voodoo priestess had a little repartee about their different powers and I just listened, amused.
After their playful ribbing ended, he asked me how the voodoo tarot card reading went, and I told him that it was really cool. Then he asked me if I would mind letting him inside my head, or spirit or something, and I told him, “Sure.” Then he made a funny face and kind of got theatrical and said, “I hear this noise, this buzzing in the back of your head. It’s like you’re always thinking, there’s always something going on in there.”
And I responded, “Oh.” Internally, I responded, annoyed, “Who the hell is this guy?”
He continued, “That voice is going to take you down, man. It’s causing you a lot of stress. You don’t always have to listen to it. It doesn’t have to be there.”
I told him, “A lot of what this trip is about is that. Getting away from that voice.” And he nodded his head, like I hadn’t really achieved that. And then I probably made a face, because I was supremely annoyed.
So then he smiled and said, “You know my advice to you is to go get a Hurricane (Iconic New Orleans drink) and sit down by the side of the Mississippi and watch the sunset. It’s beautiful. Just kick back. Take it easy.”
I nodded and said, “That sounds awesome, but I have a dinner and a Ghost Tour I have to get to.” All these plans.
And he nodded and said, “That Ghost tour is going to be terrible if it’s not wit this one person, so and so.” And it was not with so and so. And I never made it to that Ghost Tour because of an upset stomach.
I get him now. I wish I could have had more chill out moments on my trip. Not made so many plans, and destinations. But if I had, maybe I wouldn’t have learned what I learned on the trip, and maybe I never would’ve gone on the trip in the first place.
Flash back to New Orleans, fifteen minutes before my talk with the Pony tailed Psychic. I’m getting my Tarot cards read by the Voodoo Priestess, who looked like a normal woman with a New Orleans accent. She asked me what my astrological sign was. Taurus, I said, but I have a lot of Leo in me. The Taurus is stable, chill, stubborn, and perhaps a smidgen lazy. The Leo is all about fire, taking charge, devil may care attitude. She looked at me sympathetically said, “I’m the same way. Those two are really hard to balance. It gets easier with age.”
I hope she’s right.
3 years ago, I sat with my Grandmother on a park bench and she looked over me and said, “B, you never stop going do you. You just keep going and going. Even when you’re on vacation, you always have to be doing something.”
In response, I said, “That’s just me. I’m always going. I like to keep going, doing things, always gotta be doing something.”
She said, “That sure must be hard.”
I ended that conversation by saying, “I’ve just always been this way.” And she smiled.
I’ve accepted that I’m never going to be totally chilled out, “dude… life is beautiful, lets just sit here, drink a beer, and appreciate everything.” I’ll never be a Nascar guy, I’m a basketball guy. There is always going to be the voice that is causing me to strive, go forward, take on life, fight through everything, get it done, make it happen, pay the bills, force change, for change to stop. It is never going to go away. It is part of me.
But on the other hand, it doesn’t have to be all of me, all the time. I can find that balance. I am finding that balance. If I don’t take a moment, breathe, focus on the leaves in a tree, listen to a song, SING MY LUNGS OUT, dance, move, be creative, do these things from time to time, I’m going to go crazy and then I’m going to get sick, and then well… it all happens again.
THE CALM PRESENCE OF THE SEA
Last weekend, I took a drive down Santa Monica and went straight to the sea. I’d been having these recurring pictures in my head of me sitting and watching the ocean. And I realized that morning that I absolutely needed to get out of the house and go to the ocean.
Everything that day had worked out for me. I had done all these things I wanted to do. And now I fortuitously arrived at my parking spot, 15 minutes before the sun would disappear into the ocean.
I ran towards the cliff over the beach, passing all the tourists, cars, and shops. I was out of breath when I finally was able to see the ocean. The sun was burning down into it. Just above it. It was beautiful. The sun had disappeared by the time I got to the water’s edge, but it was still day. The colors of the sun and sky, made the water look like a pearl. Everything was so clear. I walked into the water. It was a transcendent moment.
I was alone, but you were all with me. Every one of you sat there beside me, past present, and future, on that beach and watched the sky turn from blue to black, as the Carousel on the Pier spun with it’s ever changing light show. It was amazing.
And it crystallized everything that had been running through my head recently. All my thoughts of change, of control, of chilling it out, of changing my careers, of dreams all came front and center, and I realized that none of it mattered. Nothing but this moment. I had never watched the sunset over the Pacific, at least not here, not with the sun, not with my eyes, not with intent.
In those five years, so much had changed. So much. And I felt really good about it, even the things I hadn’t wished for or didn’t like. Everything was all right. It was all good. It all got a pass. All the stupid things I did, all the stupid things other people did. All the smiles, all the tears, all the mistakes, all the friends I made, and all the friends I lost, the family that was still here and the family that had passed on, everything got equal footing on this night. This was all a part of my beautiful, crazy life. And it would have totally stunk if nothing had happened.
I wanted nothing but this night, this feeling to go on forever. But it couldn’t. And when I was ready to go, I was ready to go, I knew that it was time for things to change. And I smiled because I realized that I welcomed it, with all my heart.
My playlist for this amazing sunset, night, beach trip was:
Los Campesinos! – The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
Los Campesinos! – Coda: a Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner Shape
Death Cab For Cutie – Bixby Canyon Bridge
LCD Soundsystem – Someone Great
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
U2 –Bad
As I got up, I turned on LCD Soundsystem’s song “North American Scum” and danced across the beach back towards the street. No worries, no cares, it was that kind of a night. Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as magic. This was a perfect day.
WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO STAND FOR
I recently spent hours and hours helping my friend/yoga teacher set up her Yoga studio that she was opening up. I got cut. I got a headache. I might have gotten sick. I also missed a banging 80’s party. An 80’s party!
Many people wondered why I did it. They asked me if I was going to get paid. I said no. They asked if I had any romantic interest in her, which I answered no. They asked if I was getting free yoga. To which I answered, “Yes.” And then my friend pointed out, “But you’re already getting free yoga.” And I said, “true.” So they wondered why I was doing it. And I had no good answer.
It really wasn’t until tonight that it dawned on me, the correct way to describe why I felt compelled to help her out, even though it was stressful and hard and challenging, and the last thing in the whole world I wanted to be doing, I did it because it’s a friend following her dream. Going for it. She’s starting her own yoga studio, and who knows how it’s going to turn out, and if it’s going to be successful or whatnot, none of that mattered. She was going for it. And I could help her.
I may not get anything physical or tangible out of it, but dammit, I’d rather be doing something in the service of someone’s dream. So what if it’s not my dream. It’s someone else’s passion, and passion can ignite passion. I think that’s something I can strive for.
I realize that this isn’t always possible. Life gets in the way, change gets in the way, and hell, most of the time I don’t know what I want anyway. But until I do know what I want, what I want to make life be about, I’d like to at least do things in the service of a dream or a passion. This would be a good thing. I’m still figuring this out.
CHANGE2.
Heraclitus the Greek Philosopher ~ “The Only Constant is Change.” I hate this guy.
I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, “Well Will, do you think everything is going to change.” And I responded, “Yeah, I think so. I think everything is going to change.”
Things have to change. My life has to change. We’re always changing, but I mean big change. And now is the time for that change. I don’t really even have a choice in the matter. Sometimes, I don’t want to change. Sometimes I want things to stay the same. I don’t want to be brave. I don’t want to do anything. I’m afraid of the future, of change. BUT there is this constant tug in my stomach, pulling me somewhere, so hard that sometimes it makes me sick.
And I say this to you right now. I have no idea where this change will take me. I never have, never will, I guess none of us do until we take a moment to look around and see how much has happened. I just have to be ready for it, because the wind is kicking up, and if I don’t stick the oar into the water and change direction, the wind is going to kick my ass and make me do it anyway. I just have to remember to breathe, smile, sing a little, and watch the sun set from an idyllic location.
