Observation
Attitude is everything. Duh, I know you know that. But do we ever believe it?
I’m not dishing details because I don’t want to jinx anything. Not that there is a lot to tell. But it is truly amazing when you awaken and say, “This is going to be my week,” and then all signs start to point in that very direction.
The road is still a difficult one, and the journey is far from over. But you can’t fear mitigating circumstances all your life, either, or you’ll travel in circles instead of shooting upward. And sometimes, even staying on course is just as good as moving on, although cruise control was never my speed and I never intend for it to be. What you have to do is take the crappy, sappy music off the stereo and get some upbeat, ass-kicking rhythms back into your soul. I’ve often said the universe provides, but whether or not I particularly believed it is anybody’s guess. But I decided to believe in it, mostly because I ran out of other options. And it’s not too shabby, having a heart lightened by hope.
I have a story to tell. It took place in the early 1990s in Pittsburgh’s Market Square. It was the summertime, and I ran into a man who did maintenance work at my college. His name was Hal. He was always pleasant and soft-spoken. When I saw him on that late afternoon, he and I had a phenomenal conversation, whereupon he told me that I am a “chosen one.” I’ve often pondered this and never came up with what that meant. I do know that he pounded it into my head that I wasn’t meant to be understood but that I was meant to accomplish superhuman feats. He’d been psychic in his day and tried to suppress the imagery because he knew a child was going to die and it ripped him apart when the vision came true. And that he didn’t know me from anything other than seeing me hanging around in the cafe, studying and smoking, I thought he might be onto something. And I want his vision for me to come true. For those who are wondering, Hal died unexpectedly a few weeks after we talked. Crushed me the way the dark psychic images tormented him.
Thinking about him was one huge contributor in my discovering my faith again — my faith in humanity, in goodness and justice, in the sunrise coming after the sunset, in the ways of the muses and the universe and, most importantly, in me again. Because I have a world to change, apparently, so let’s get that party started, and soon!
On iTunes: Gwen Stefani, “Serious”