I Need To Come Alive

Two Days ago I felt a bit infinite. I had this crazy idea on how to save money to travel and tackle my dreams. I was weary to share it because it seemed so insane. I then saw two life-affirming "go for that hard, crazy, impossible, fall-on-your face thing" posts on the Facebook and I thought it was a sign that I was onto something.

Then I shared it. I was told it was too silly and I'd hate it and I needed to find another way. Now, don't go bashing the person who said this. She just cares about me. But I'm not gonna lie. It knocked me down a bit.

Then my car died.

Then it started again.

Then I found out that I'm broke. (This with a bridal shower I'M supposed to be throwing for my best friend approaching)

Then my best friend told me she is going to start dating the most popular guy from our senior class whom I had a celebrity-esque crush on. (which shouldn't bother me, it just makes me feel worse for some reason. Not because I want the guy. AT ALL. But because it just reminds me how much I want to get out of here.)
Then my car died again.

And I felt stuck. Haulted. Unable to tackle my dreams. I don't know how to plan. I'm a talented person. I sing, I act, I write, I stalk. I am relatively ok at making people feel apprecaiated. But I can't get my dreams off the ground. I have a vision and 2 days ago I felt free and amazing for taking mental steps to see them through.

Today I realized I have never adopted structure of any kind in my life. Seriously. Every single day is different. Maybe today I'll do the dishes. Maybe today I'll hang out with my friends. Maybe today I'll make my bed. MAYBE today I'll practice my guitar. Probably today, because I have no concrete plans, I will watch How I Met Your Mother and Norman Reedus videos all day and lay in bed. (Actually today I am going to watch Singing In The Rain with one of my dearest friends, so that might be tomorrow)

Do I enjoy this? In the moment, sure. NPH is hilarious and Norman is dreamy. But like I read in Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman,

"What would happen if my entire life were made up of such easy pleasures, never calling on my strengths, never presenting challenges? Such a life sets one up for depression. The strengths and virtures may wither during a life of taking shortcuts rather than choosing a life made full through the pursuit of gratifications." 

And I'm finally ready to work hard. Take a leap and fall. But without a road map, I'm disgustingly scared. What if I wind up homeless. What if I get stranded in a foreign country. I have a hard time networking and asking for help. So what if I'm in Bangledesh without a penny to my name because I lost my backpack and no way to contact anyone? My brain stops me in my tracks. "You can't do this." is always on repeat in the background. I try to ignore it. But hearing it from anyone else turns it up to blaring and I concede that it must be true.

I WANT NEED TO TRAVEL

I WANT NEED TO WORK ON A FARM

I WANT NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT

I WANT NEED TO ACT

I WANT NEED TO SING IN A BAND

I WANT NEED TO BECOME A GREAT WRITER

I need these things because they will fulfill my soul. And a fulfilled soul is a productive member of society. As Howard Thurman says: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Im ready to come alive and be impressed with myself.

My roommate has suggested I cut all ties. If I want to be a feral human, roots need to be upped. But the idea of ridding myself of all my possesions and leaving my pup seems near impossible.

And this is why I'm stuck. I'm in between craving the life of a nomad and enjoying the life I have built and the people in it.

My head is spinning.

Any suggestions on how to quench wanderlust and tackle dreams. I'm all ears.

...And in that moment, I swear we were INFINITE

There was a time when I felt this way. Sometimes I still see glimpses of it. But it was those times with my best friends by my side that we were INFINITE.

We had just graduated highschool and were learning life much like Charlie. We lived life with wild abandon and with enough childlike wonder to make our transition into adulthood the most fullfilling, beautiful, invigorating experience we could imagine.

We were poor. We lived at home. I remember we all shared the book; each taking turns reading it. I was the last and I remember feeling left out when they would talk about it before I was finished.

You know that image of standing up in a convertible as it travels down a long strech of deserted highway with your arms up and maybe a scarf or just your hair blowing in the wind? That is what my life was like at that time. Full yet empty. Empty in that there was so much room for dreams and so much time to see them come true.

On any given weekend you could find us hitting the road to see our favorite artists perform in dank small venues; their sweat and ours creating a humid room filled with the joy of music and comraderie. Their art was true and real and not manufactured for the masses. At times there were a handful of fellow appreciators, at others a steady stance was needed to manuever the waves of the surging crowd. EVERY TIME was perfect. Even when I was kicked in the head or had a foot stepped on. I look back and think, "Perfection"

One time I actually lost my job to follow an Art/Music tour called Attention to Expression around California. I remember getting the call right before the last show of the tour saying if I wasn't at work the next morning I should just not show up again. Seeing as it was 7p and I was in San Francisco there was no way I was not going inside to watch the last night of that beautiful display. So I just didn't show up. I sat inside front and center and teared up as Matt Embree crooned solo on his acoustic guitar and thought to myself, "There is no where I'd rather be. I made the right choice."

Obviously at 30 I can no longer do things on such careless whim. Work is kind of important and I am no longer able to just crash on a friends parents' couch til I can find a job.

And with time the relationships that helped form me. The love that helped me know what I love was wounded. And we no longer spend long afternoons together. But that's ok. Because as the book says:

"Things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody"

Life hasn't stopped and the memories have never faded. I love those times and when I think of who I'd like to be; that girl, the one who felt infinite, says:

"You can feel that way again."

A year abroad without leaving home.

So I had this wild idea the other day. I recently started hosting couch surfers. It has been a blast, though I have been mostly unprepared. Anyhoo, the thought crossed my mind that we here in the NO (Fresno, Ca for those not as hip to our awesome lingo) are very culturally diverse. We have all kinds of beautiful amazingly creative and ethnicly different individuals here. And I'd LOVE to absorb their passion about what makes them...them!

So this is a plea to anyone who will listen to say let me in, take me on a journey to your country, artform, Zen place, religious temple and allow me to absorb and appreciate the lovely differences between us all.

Thank You in Advance!

Krystle

Someone Special To Me: The Godfather of Latin Rock; Mr. Tequila



This Man is an icon.  He is a star and Guiness Record holder. But to me, He is simply Grandpa.

He is my inspiration and bloodline.

The overwhelming feeling I get when I think of just how much he has shaped me and how special he is to me make it near impossible to even really form words about it. Thus making a blog of this magnitude a bit on the difficult side. But It feels time.

I have spent many a blog posts talking about my lacking ability to try too hard at anything. It is this all encompassing pitfall for me that I desperately want to overcome. And the other day when thinking about my Grandfather, I was overwhelmed with inspiration.

This man was not born into wealth by any means. He was the son of migrant farm workers from Mexico. They had very little in the way of material goods but lots of love. As a boy he was on the path to the cloth. There are pictures of him as litle as 4 years old holding a bible.

Then he found music. He didn't just find it, it found him. And his calling changed. He taught himself every instrument he could get his hands on.  HE WORKED HARD AT IT. He was also a gifted networker. Forming groups and bands and working his way up the ranks.

My Grandmother actually met him while he was gigging at a club where she waitressed. She once told me that he would drive past her and lift his shades and do that double-eyebrow lift as to say "Hey there Hot Stuff." A whirlwind romance took place. Just like the movies. JUST LIKE THE MOVIES!

The point is that my Grandpa went after everything he wanted. He worked for it. He wooed it. He studied it. He networked for it. He was unstoppable.

He soared to the top then had a massive fall. People stabbed him in the back and he struggled but he never quit. EVER. It wasn't until he started losing his hearing and Parkinson's set in that he was forced to stop performing. And even then it wasn't his choice. The man was phenomenal

And as his granddaughter I feel that must live in me somewhere. Some dormant capability to see my dreams come true. See them come true because failure isn't even something I contemplate. The gift to dwell in the flow of what I love and know that the growing pains will get me there.

So Grandpa, Thank You. Thank you for making music a source of comfort. A place I call home. For always encouraging my talent and fostering it. For making a me get up in front of crowded clubs and dance like Pee-Wee Herman ALL THE TIME! For teaching me chopsticks when I was 5 and for always wanting me to sing for you. I will never forget the emotional love of music you have instilled and I miss you everyday. Your impact on music goes to all corners and generations and I hope to make you proud. So I will try hard to try hard. I will get callouses on my fingers and sing til my voice is gone. I will act every chance I get and audition for roles I don't think they'd ever cast me for. I will know that my dancing skills are not great but my voice outshines that. I will keep going and trying and learning and adapting. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for living life the way you did.

A Gem From Mr. Daniel "Chuck Rio" Flores

"If someone is talking about you tell them its ok. Good or bad that means you are important enough in their minds to talk about"

I LOVE YOU GRANDPA!

How a Saint with a Crossbow made me 16 again. And why I'm ok with that.

Soooo, you know how most days I'm all deep and stuff. I'm all like, "come search the caverns of my mind and heart with me while I posit profound (me thinks) ideas about being a better person"

And then I write posts like this one.

It is NO SECRET that I can go from indifferent spectator to devoted Fanatic in 1.695 seconds. This phenomena has occured in record time recently and I just couldn't help myself but to write about it.

 

This, my Dear Friends, is Norman Reedus. He is currently starring on the hit AMC show The Walking Dead and I have spent the last 2 weeks enveloped in a zombie filled world catching up for Season 3.

If you don't watch this show, I whole-heartedly encourage you to do so. Especially if you enjoy Guts and Gore and little girls getting their brains blown out. And I mean...who doesn't, right?

*raises hand*

Yeah, Me. I don't. I mean, not normally. But this show is Sensational and This man is, I'd say, 87% of the reason why.

His character is so complex and he is the badassiest of badasses.

*swoon*

So I immediately IMDB'd Mr. Daryl Dixon to see who this fine actor was. I needed to know the person who could make me literally say out loud in Ep 1 "Ugh, I hate him." Then with each one that followed have me fully engaged in his motives, his backstory, his complexities and his heart.

Then, when that wasn't enough (because for a fanatic such as myself it never is) I hit the Youtube. And after that first interview my heart was won. Whilst on the Internet Movie Database I found that Mr. Reedus was 43. With the first smile and beautifully young candor, this man taught me that age is, in fact, merely a number and SO much is yet to come out of this amazing, crazy, fabulous life of mine.

Now, God Bless him, Norman has all corners of the social media world covered. And he posts...A LOT! And I just don't have the will power to not consume everything he serves up. Which has lead to a frenzied fangirl type adoration which closely matches the NSYNC hysteria of 1999 or the RxBandits Stalking of 2004. And it has made me question myself and my sanity.

I am, for all intents and purposes, an intelligent woman. I have my whits about me and am never spoon fed anything. I philosophize and ponder and come to conclusions about life that make me grow and become better. And for some reason I feel a since of shame being so devoted to someone you don't know. So why is it that I can get lost so fast in this way?

And I think the reason is this:

It keeps my mind focused for a bit. I can perserverate for hours on fantasy, create scenarios and fall into a crazy dream-like stupor. And this, for the moment, is an escape. And you know what? I rather enjoy it.

So, I hereby own it. I am a Norman Reedus fangirl. I spend lots of time watching him talk. I have heard about how Daryl is an "Al-Anon member and not an Alcoholics Anonyous member" who "needs a hug but if you tried to he will stab you" a thousand times. And, We Live Together New York is in constant rotation.

Norman, if you read this, which I'm certain you will not (how crazy do I sound? VERY? Ok, cool) You have inspired me.

Monologue Mondays will commense once I get a computer up and running. Also, you can bet I will be gracing you all with my vocal stylings far more often.

I have talent and more than that, artistic endeavors of any kind fill me with purpose. I enjoy loosing myself in another's emotion and swirling notes with my voice. The idea of it all has me elated.

So, Thanks Norman.

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