Magic Happens

I can remember about 11 years ago this one conversation I had with a well known actor sitting in his car in a parking lot of a Barnes and Noble, and he said something to me that I've never forgotten.

He made me visualize a time in my life when I was forced to overcome something out of nothing but personal will power. I was quick to reply, he told me to shut up and really think about it.

At the time I was going through a major personal brick wall of what seemed to be a no-end situation. So... I sat there, really thought, thought hard and long and then I told the following story...

In 1994, I was 16 years old. In my history to that point, I had already had many reasons to rejoice in my triumphs and likewise, I could've very easily focused on the upsetting things of my life as well. I was a child entertainer. I was also an orphan. I was the winner of many awards, the star of many productions, national commercials, a prodigious tap dancer by the age of 10. I was also a fat kid with a lisp, unruly hair, a major learning disability, was sick all the time, and painfully picked on by kids my own age. This fat kid, i.e. me, had spunk though. I had just enough "dumb" in me to believe only the good things, and most of the time I ignored the bad things. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I didn't really admit to anything that was negative.

Some people would say that I was naive, but they would be wrong. If being naive to negativity is a bad thing, then that goes against anything that anyone has ever accomplished, overcame, won, or persisted through to reach victory.

I'm writing this blog because recently I've been in what I would call "the pit." A phrase that was coined by a dear friend who actually died while laughing. How fantastic! The "pit" is a symbolic way of describing a modus operandi that isn't the highlight reel of your life at that moment. The pit I've been in recently is residual because of the thoughts that came before the manifestation of 'said' pit. If you are thinking correctly you'd never know of that pit.

Why create it? Is it cozy there? Warm? Does it feel good to be in it? Nope. Nope. Nope.

Moving along.. I had an epiphany of something I've known as long as I've known myself. It goes back to what this actor friend told me in his car that day. He made me recall a time that I overcame something major and not only succeeded, but WON over all odds.

I launched into my story with him and it went a little something like this...

Being the fat kid who was super talented, I knew very well what tools I had to make people accept me. I had humor, I had talent, I could turn on the charm, I could talk to ANYONE about ANYTHING with full joy reverberating from my soul. Then something weird happened... I grew up. I no longer knew myself or how I fit in. I didn't have the kid thing going on anymore and it wasn't "cute and adorable" to be dumb, fat, and naive at the age of 16. The roles I auditioned for were given to the leggy tall blondes and I was a better dancer than my taller more beautiful counterparts?!!! All I can remember is thinking, "The summer is coming up and I'm going to reinvent myself. I WILL be beautiful. I WILL be dynamite. I WILL come back full force and I'm gonna shock even myself!" The summer I turned 16(in June), I spent most of my days alone and walking through the park just visualizing everything I wanted to be, look like, and do. I was in my own little world. [side note: I was so into my own head that my family thought I was on drugs. ha ha ha I've never done drugs in my life... already wired for "fun" Dig?]

So anyhow, I spent every single day that summer visualizing, visualizing, visualizing. I imagined myself center stage singing, dancing, and getting a standing ovation from my peers, my family, and a multitude of people that I didn't know at all. It's important to say that at this point, I was out of the loop of performing for the last 3-4 years. That doesn't seem like a lot of time, but when you have spent literally your entire childhood touring and performing and it's all you know- it's a long time to NOT do the only thing you know how to do. Dig?

So the summer goes by... I had visualized everything from getting a car, the perfect car, and the performing for people, standing ovation, being tall, beautiful, funny, smart, etc... over and over and over again...

When school started back up in the fall, I had literally grown about 3 inches in a summer(don't say "that is impossible" but with your mind, anything is possible.) I was about 120 pounds and around 5'7, long blonde hair, and even the very essence of my energy was radiating. My lisp was GONE, I was no longer the same person physically at all. More importantly- I had evolved emotionally. Nobody knew who I was when I returned to school. I was still being picked on but for an entirely different reason. I was being picked on by people who were jealous. "Who is that girl? Ugh. She thinks she's so awesome. Whatever. Why is she smiling at everyone? She makes me sick." I knew for the first time that I was being picked on because I had something they wanted. MY ENERGY. I realized I'd had that affect on people my entire life but never was aware of it until I chose to be aware of it.

There was an audition that year for a big musical. A huge production. I had NO business being the lead in this production. I walked into that audition and was so embarrassed and terrified to sing or show off at all that I completely froze. I asked the director if I could please just turn my back to him and sing because I was too scared to face anyone. Then something amazing happened. I barely squeaked out a verse from a song that I used to win awards singing when I was a kid. This director stopped me and said, "No Melodee, I know you can do this. I have a feeling about you and I know you can do this. Just go for it." I took a breath and then put the image of the center stage standing ovation I'd visualized all summer into my mind.... and went for it. What came out of my mouth wasn't even known to me. I had NO idea I could sing like I was singing. I sounded like a 45 year seasoned jazz singer in 1940. It was incredible. I got the part. I also had the "haters" of life saying "who is that? Can she even hack it? Bad decision on the part of the director. She must be sleeping with someone who is making the decisions around here."

A month or two later I was standing center stage and 600 people were standing up screaming and clapping as the curtain closed and I was taking the biggest bow of my life. I was also getting the biggest apologies from my fellow cast members for doubting me only 2 months prior to that big ol' bow center stage.

Long story made longer- I told that story to this actor friend and he said the following to me and now I'll say it to you.

He said:

"Hey Mel... When you doubt things going on in your life, just think about that story you just told me and remember THAT is what you are made of."

I'll leave you guys with one other quote right now... I hope it finds you like it found me earlier today.

" Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." -Albert Einstein

So imagine greatness. Imagine love. Imagine beauty. Imagine health. Imagine something so grand that if you achieved it, it would actually blow your mind.

Thank God for epiphanies. Whew~! Just in time.

Cathedrals of Capitalism

I just went through a 10 minute debate on which font to pick for this blog.

I chose Georgia because it's just a new risky one offered on my 'options' bar. It's appropriate to bring up how I had a 10 minute thought process over font choice because it pertains to the subject of my blog. I'd like to think that I'm smart or even wise, but when I go into a large retail/grocery store I have a full boar melt down of my mental functions. I can't process anything. I had this experience publicly very recently. My friend wanted to get some Thanksgiving treats at the grocery store and asked if I needed anything. I offered to walk there with him and we'd kick ass inside that store and get an array of goodies for Thanksgiving. My goal was to get the following:

pie, Coke Zero, more pie, beer, and egg nog. Upon entering the store I feel the panic set in. Too many people, too many sounds, too much shit to choose from. My friend asked me to help him out and grab some Ritz crackers. Okay.... No problem. I have a task now and I will meet the challenge of this Ritz finding. I failed. I couldn't find anything. The Ritz cracker is an illusive thing. You'd think it would be on the chip aisle, then you shamefully figure out it's not as you saunter to the "party food aisle"- my rationale is "hey we are having a party, I'll go on the party aisle and I'll find all the Ritz I can man handle." I found none. I found Ding Dongs, Pringles, Triskets, and the like... no Ritz. Do they make Ritz anymore? Of course they do. It's the answer to your cracker needs when Saltines won't cut the mustard.

Finally I realize that my friend has been calling my phone repeatedly. "Where are you? What in the hell? Did you get lost?" I asked how much time had elapsed and his response was "30 minutes!".... I apologized profusely and explained relative time in time space as it relates to gravity or magnetic fields... I offered up a theory that maybe the grocery store has high electro-magnetic fields which just warped my sense of time. After my friend shot me in the head, he effortlessly found the Ritz crackers. They were on an aisle I had walked down about 7 times while cursing the very air I was breathing because I couldn't find them.

My mind started reeling about this. My friend is a gay guy... I am a chick... I should be able to find things at stores right? Wrong. I don't think like a woman at all. I don't have compartments like that in my brain for spices, breads, various cheeses, recipes, decor, shopping, babies... none of that is within my reasoning. My friend is way more of a woman than I am.

So moving swiftly along.... The next day after Thanksgiving we all decide to walk around downtown and just look in stores, etc... I knew I needed a few things. I needed gloves, new socks, and I needed a sweater that didn't look like I had been living under a bus for the last 10 years. The options were intense. Too many. If I found a sweater that I thought would work for me, I would find another one that had a pocket that was a smidge different but yet it was 10 dollars more... this got me a' thinkin', "is that pocket structurally more sound than the pocket on the cheaper edition of the EXACT SAME SWEATER?" I may never know. I didn't buy either of them. All in all, I tried on about 8 sweaters of the same color and style and none of them seemed to me to be the excalibur of their lot.

The endless options we have in our cathedrals of capitalism are ridiculous. However, how it started in the first place is why we live in the USA and why people envy us... Creativity. If there were one gray sweater and that was all you had to choose from, someone, maybe even me, would say "I can make a gray sweater just like that one only with pockets or red buttons cause that is what I would want so there must be someone else who is wanting a gray sweater with red buttons?" This is the whole reason people make dreams come true here in the United States when they had no options or less options in their homeland. If you were born here, you take for granted the options you have. It's all you've ever known. Even if you were poor and living in the slums of Detroit, you were still surrounded by plenty within a few blocks. Americans(myself included) shouldn't complain about the Ethiopian owned corner store or the Korean nail salon's popping up all over the place....We should check ourselves and think about how they came to another country and didn't know jack shit about jack shit about jack shit regarding our culture, the language, ET AL... and still had the balls to say "I know there is a nail salon over there but my nail salon (or car repair, corner store) will be different somehow, and I will make money here."

And they do.

Maybe it is because they believe in the fairy tale of the United States of America , i.e. "As a man thinketh, so is he." If I think of something for long enough as being "the answer to all my problems" or "my dream situation"... you will make it work even if you realize it's not all that easy or rose tinted.

As for my meltdowns in grocery stores or retail outlets or font choosing.... I think I'd rather lose track of time in a grocery store looking for Ritz crackers than I would losing the option to create a better grocery store layout or better yet- write freely a blog about not finding the Ritz crackers.