I Don't Do What I Do

I saw a black and white movie after work. It’s modern but I saw it in a theater has free popcorn and expensive beer. Today Work was Starbucks. Tomorrow Work is writing websites for small businesses. I get paid much more for the writing but not enough. I worked at Starbucks while earning my degree. Now I work at Starbucks so that I can use my degree for work.

The movie was art and even if the plot didn't surround a twenty-something too “busy” not working to make the bed, it still would have been enough to change the course of my night. My nights never end in front of the computer. Not since The Bull or the story of We have nights ended here.

When I was 12 and in the family van riding towards Minnesota my little brother would sometimes hit his arm. “Whack.” Then he would “cry.” And then, if I had already done something stupid like talked back to mom or made fun of my brother, the van would pull over and I would likely be punished for hitting my brother. In retrospect I know that I should have been able to out-smart the six year-old, but at the time I wished for a witness. Maybe another older brother, in another car right alongside ours who could wave and yell and save me. Save me not just from the humiliation of requiring a spanking, but from being the instigator of the small sadness my parents felt, or the small disappointment they felt because their oldest son wasn't being nice to their youngest.

As a younger man than I am I saw a powerful leader getting others in trouble while he hit himself to make noise. Then I thought that I wasn't clever enough to outsmart him, to reveal the injustice, to be the other boy in the other car. Later I decided that it wasn't my smarts that were lacking, but the courage necessary to risk being blamed for another false hit. Now I know that it wasn't courage nor intelligence that inhibited my action. It was a too keen awareness that I too was doing the same.

In Denver my heroes have changed because my aspirations have been forced to. In college I would have called it settling but now I enjoy thinking of it as living while I’m living. My heroes were once Who I Thought I Would Become and The People Like That Person. Now the heroes are people more like me. A mom bringing pasta to her co-workers at the coffee shop despite living a different life than she once did. A bartender after hours, smoking inside and twirling her drink while she talks about an old love. A lawyer too scared to do something else, but a lawyer trying not to be.

I have no doubt that my heroes are like me so that I will be okay with me, but I’m also okay with being okay with me. My skin is dry, I’m embarrassed to tell people that I’m another English degree at Starbucks and I have no idea how I’m paying my rent. But a thing that I like to think that I know is that there are seasons. And I like to think that I know that they are all beautiful because of the other. Tonight I watched a movie that helped me listen to music with the windows down and look at the lights of my city. It helped me pass Netflix and bars and phone calls and Facebook. It helped me end up here again. I hope another artist who isn't an artist sees the movie too.

“It’s hard to explain what I do…because I don’t really do it.”