water your garden, friend | birthday trip , day 1 | travel diary
Ideally, the blog portion of this website, around L.A., all coincides with a central theme; and, hopefully, the addition of this section isn’t straying too far from it. Flying in and out of LAX is actually very LA. Heck, the majority of the people I encounter in Los Angeles are transplants that don’t mind traveling. So, here we are. Welcome to my travel diary! (If this is not what you’re here for, you’d prefer to stick to strictly Los Angeles content, please check out my guide to L.A. category!)
Sneaky? Gangster?
I snuck out of my house today. Being that I’m grown and untethered, I didn’t have to sneak, but I chose to, in order to avoid any questions or commentary.
As I sit on the aircraft, going over 600mph from LAX to CDG, I ponder why I am that way. According to various rappers with felonious pasts, “gangsters move in silence,” but I talk a lot. When I talk, that is. I’m not one to be halfway into something. It’s either I’m passionate, or idgaf. It’s either I run it to you completely in nauseating detail, or I don’t want to tell the story at all. It’s either I’m ready to share it with the world, or I can’t tell a soul. Remember, I’m the girl that didn’t tell anyone I was moving to L.A. until the move was underway, now I have a whole blog dedicated to spilling all the beans around L.A. — See? It’s one extreme or the other with me.
Speaking of extremes… Instagram. I act like I don’t know how to scroll, maybe upload a post, then go. I get on Instagram to see the latest on my news feed, and next thing I know, the sun is going down, and I’m reading thru comments on my old client’s baby daddy’s new baby mama’s ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s page.. on a post from 2014. Call it obsessive, or fancy it up and call it a research-oriented nature; whatever it is, it’s a no. There’s too much money out here to be made to be pulling 8-hour shifts on Instagram that don’t directly lead to a deposit in my bank account.
In addition to the fact that extended amounts of time on social media can be used to do something more financially beneficial, it makes room for you to focus on you.
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
You must cultivate your own garden. How are we supposed to stay on top of what we have going on, if we spend so much of our time all up in what everybody else has going on?! Now, I like tea just as much as the next girl. Shoot, I’m a more regular Wendy watcher than all my girlfriends. I’m always fired up, or have a strong opinion about something, which is why it’s important for me to occasionally unplug. Where is the peace if I’m constantly annoyed by some young celeb making herself look dumb behind a lil’ boy who’s even dumber, or outraged by a Black body shot down in the street, or torn to pieces by another innocent baby suffering child abuse?
While I wouldn’t argue that we should turn a blind eye to what’s going on in the world, I do agree that,
“we should never tie our personal moods to the condition of a whole nation or people in general.”
Joy comes from within
Some of the memes were humorous, but I’m glad it’s December because I’m tired of hearing people say how tired of 2020 they are and wishing they could “throw the whole 2020 away,” as if a different calendar year number would make a difference. I hope they know that when the clock strikes 12:01am January 1, 2021, the world isn’t going to magically become rainbows and butterflies. Even if there’s a public health crisis, even if people are acting like idiots high up in office, even if a nation is on the verge of civil war, paradise is in the mind; there’s hope.
No outside factors could ever bring my spirits down; the most they could do is distract me.
I’m learning that, if I’m too invested in what’s going on in other (people’s) gardens, it could be easy to neglect what’s dying in my own. I silence outside noise (cutback on social media, news, etc.) and focus on my own garden by riding my bike, consuming content that motivates thought (inspiring memoirs, good articles, entertaining-but-informative YouTube videos), and… writing, of course.
How do you take time to water your metaphorical garden? Do you manage your own small business? Are you working towards yoga mastery? Or, have you a literal garden that you maintain? Think of activities you do, that have nothing to do with the stresses of the outside world, the work on your own little plot of land. Tweet me, I want to know.
Okay, I’m about to go watch an Ahmed Sylla program that AirFrance has available on the free WiFi. I don’t know what he’s saying, but I like looking at him.
The plan is to do an entry into this travel diary every day of my trip, even if it’s only a few sentences (yeah right). We’ll see how this goes.
graphic: Pinterest
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