Meeting a Man at a Bar (or how it all began...)
Years ago, too many to (comfortably) remember, I met a man. He was a friend of a friend and I only met him once, yet that one drink we shared once upon a time has played on my mind’s stage many times like a scene from a movie. Or maybe like the chorus of an annoying song you hear every so often and can’t get out of your head.
I don’t really remember the details of how we arrived at the bar, but I do remember, quite boldly, I asked if he would meet me.
I was a student at the time starting to question my choice in degrees and he was, and is, an international fashion photographer. I’m still not sure why I thought he might be the perfect person to give me advice.
He and my friend went to photography school together. After graduation, Todd* stayed in Edmonton and Steven* went to Milan to work in fashion. He was a Canadian kid with no experience, but off he went. He had only one plan and no back-up plan if it didn’t work. Somehow he discovered every morning there was a 6:00 a.m. bus that carried many employees to their jobs in the fashion district, so he got on that bus, too.
Every morning.
At 6:00 a.m.
It took a while, but eventually he started to know some of the people on the bus and that’s ultimately how he got his first meeting in Milan. Early in his career - and this was before cell phones, so bear with me - he told me he would do things like call the office he had a meeting at in advance, pretending to be someone else, so when he arrived the receptionist would give him the message and he would look important.
Then he asked me what I was doing...oh, fuck.
I told him I was doing a degree in communications but I really wanted to be a writer. He asked me why I didn’t just write then. Ummm...let’s see...a million reasons (and none of them sounded cool) came to my mind, but what I said was the degree was my back-up plan.
He sat back, considered this, and said (this is the part I’ll never forget): “If I had had a back-up plan, I never would have gotten on that bus every morning.”
Funny how the same fear of failure, which propelled him to pursue and achieve his dream, has stopped me cold from throwing myself out there.
So, the years passed, and I started doing less and less creative work. I think I was actually run over by the bus while running across the street towards my back-up plan. I never even saw it coming.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a great life and very little to bitch about. I just know that I need to start demanding a little more from myself. I suspect there are a lot of people out there like me: thinking but not doing. We know who we are.
This blog is going to be a place where I can ramble and grow. Perhaps try new things, maybe regurgitate crap, too. A bit of this, a bit of that. I hope you’ll come along for the ride but it’s okay if you don’t, too. Maybe you have your own journey planned and I wish you luck.
For those of us considering changing things up, I made this pro and con list.
Reasons why getting on the bus is stupid:
I can’t wake up that early
It takes too long to get there
Unsavoury characters ride the bus
I’d have to wear sensible shoes to stand at a bus stop
Reasons to get on the bus:
It’s the only way to get where I want to go.
*Names have been changed
