Waking up

Waking up the dreamer inside

May 15th 2018

            In stories, I've learned, there are moments that character's must choose to leave their' world behind and start the adventure with no assurance that their goal will be reached.  One could say that they begin their new life in the world of a story but I say that many of us share this quality. Both fiction and reality contain that "crossing over the threshold" vibe that really hit you with the big questions; Am I ready to see what's out there? What will happen while I'm gone? Will I fail and return home in shame after not accomplishing the   main goal?  The BIG questions that makes writer's creation a two dimensional pile of shit or a fully realized protagonist with wants, needs, fears and has meaningful lost. Does the choice the character make have consequences after learning new information of change by the end of their arc?

            It was realizing this that I realize something else. A moment far more need than I assumed but often disregard as dreams of a dreamer who's yet to wake up from slumber. The source of my months- on -end writer's block is that I have yet to have crossed over my own threshold as a writer. I haven crossed over the state lines to see the highways that connect these great states.   How could I write about characters, my characters, growing through out the stories in my mind when I have yet to continue my own path as a dreamer who makes things up for money? A distracted salad cook working out a questionable pizzeria, a determined dishwasher at a local bar-b-q, an anxious delivery truck driver, a foolish cabin server cleaning planes even though he's never been on a flight, and a smooth talking hotel houseman have one thing in common. They never left the south to see if they could make it work, these silly little ideas of success and adventure. Another thing in common these employees have in common is they are all me, not the character's I've been writing about.

            How about this: A writer, disappointed at where he is in his career, wants to leave his southern roots behind him and take a trip to New York to awaken his inner dreamer.  The words look foolish and ridiculous as I write them down but it's the most honest version of myself I can see.  A fool with nothing to loose but his ambition if he doesn't leave where he's from, not forever, not even for a month, but long enough to find what he's been missing.  The fire in his eyes that's gone out.

            The WANT to write stories.  The NEED  to see how it all transpires. This "DREAM" his mother laughed at long before his graduation from college a BFA in Creative Writing but not that much after his decision to become a freelance writer. And so, I begin my journey to the BIG APPLE to see for myself the place of mine and many other people dreams.

            To begin this story properly, we must go back to the beginning. It all started a few weeks ago. I had been working a Mellow Mushrooms restaurant for about a month and was hired on as a salad cook after an interview cut short by an overworked hiring manager. Paul, as I would come to learn his name, was a very frail man who smiled of American Spirits cigarette smoke every time he stop by my station to ask if I needed help learning the different salad combination.

           

            "We could really use the help. The sooner you start the better."

           

            He holds his hand out to me and I could see the entire experience as I took it. Hours upon hours of lunch rushes, dinner rushes and the mad scramble to keep managers of my back. 

            This being my second job in the food industry, it wasn't my first time around the kitchen. My first job working in the back of the house was actually at a bar-b-q hole in the wall four blocks from my home.

            After being among ribs and pork sandwiches for a year, I decided it was time to move on. Alas, I find myself at a pizza joint ten blocks from my home, a step above dishwasher and a step down from pizza chief.  I was working there for two pay periods and by the third one, I was over the 9 to 5 much faster than the prior job. I could have said that I wanted to work somewhere else but after you been in the work force since you graduated high school, you realize that the reason for quitting is the last thing that matters once you're done with the job.  Two weeks felt like a marathon next to merely letting someone know you've lost interest in working for the future of the business. 

            So there I was, walking out on another job because that's what happens when you work at a job that had zero experience relation to what I attended college for. Before, I'd will simply clanged to the idea that working in labor to earn a living was the way of life. No shame or resentment. That we as people can serve with dignity and a chance provided for our family and ourselves. That's how I was raised in Atlanta and that's how my parents were raised in the south.  Work equals survival.  Yes, I could say it was because that's all we ever knew, working Monday through Friday, enjoying sitting on the porch listening to music all day Saturday and attending Sunday service followed by what can old be described as a pot luck dinner amongst church elders and mothers.

            The simple life, as many of my family members have come to call it, composed of what you would expect from a black boy from the south. The southern belle whom they grew up with and married once blessed by the pastor, the constant attendance of cookouts with in-laws and yearly birthday get-togethers where friends you haven't seen in years would appear yet only to vanish once again when it is brought to an end . The life where you keep you're Facebook and Instagram in constant buzzing of approval.  To be clear, this WAS NOT what I wanted for myself. I wanted to leave, to get away from the normal to something abnormal.