Daybreak

The wind beneath our wings is the force of our subscribed beliefs. Some beliefs are fluid and flexible, and some are firm and nonnegotiable. We join people and places, ie colleges, companies, communities, aiming to achieve a purpose from our beliefs.

Everybody has had more than one experience where their honest thought-process has gotten them into trouble. I have so many funny stories about how nutty things are with me being a Professional. 

Once upon a time, i ended my soccer class 5 minutes too early. On purpose, because my mood was off from my damn dawg at home being annoying, the kids were laughing and running all over the place despite my effort to guide a kicking drill, and the icing on the cake was my manager/co-coach treating me rudely by bossing me around (nothin’ personal, merely the evils of corporate overlords power tripping). 

Now, one of the number 1 rules of my Personal Professionalism is DO YOUR TIME. I swore i would always and i pretty much mean it, with the only exception being one of the other number 1 rules changing that setting… KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Well, my audience was 5 five year olds who were having more fun on their own with one another, bein’ silly horsin’ around all that, than listening to the tall lady hopelessly trying to get them to follow the demanded curriculum, something even i thought was more boring than the magical world those kiddos made up instinctually. So, checking my purple wristwatch, i decided to forfeit my attempt to be authoritative against the nature of their healthy play. I let the clock run, as i floated around the gymnasium, keepin’ an eye on them, being a laissez faire babysitter. 

“Excuse me, Coach Jade?”

At 6:45pm on the dot, i turned around from packing up the sports equipment to a Karen.

“Hi.” i uttered. 

“I thought the class was 45 minutes.”

“Oh.” i uttered.

“You ended class at 40 minutes into it. I pay for full sessions.”

The standup comedian in me instantly empathized the importance of 5 minutes. The athlete in me knew timing matters so incredibly dearly. The customer service provider I am recognized the valid point of her inquiry. 

Yet… I am double-sided.   

The scientist in me could not teach her, in this context, that our Gregorian calendar is a matter of subjective belief so the minutes we are missing are superficial. The childcare expert in me could not rebuttal with an oral dissertation about how my soccer students are advancing in better ways engaged in their creative freeplay rather than training them to be obedient from someone like me, a qualified youth fitness instructor but a woman who will not be in position feeling like a salmon swimming upstream. (salmon are anadromous, a term which comes from the Greek anadromos, meaning "running upward". so my meaning is that i intend to move easily and cruise the flow, instead of exercising in opposition to it). Also known as, allowing kids to be kids; opposed to myself doing a “good job” by allowing the only factor of my Teaching to be digital accuracy & doing a “bad job” by stopping the actual point of this session - to have freakin’ fun.  

“Well, reading the energy in the room [gymnasium], i felt like it was appropriate for me to trail away from failing to gain their attention and simply n safely let them do their own thing.”

Her blank stare was mirrored by mine right back - did she think i could reverse the hands of The Creator’s plan just because she metaphorically had a receipt for the illusory return of the past time to the present moment? Wtf were we even debating? I took off my wristwatch and rolled up my left sleeve ¾ of the way, to turn into an actor of my message. I’m guilty of breaking one of the number rules. BE YOURSELF. 

Karen’s kid ran over just in time to rescue me from a conversation going nowhere. The people-pleaser in me admitted my guilt.

“I hear you. I see where you are coming from. I am completely at fault for slacking at my job. You can always bring this issue up with my manager, he’s over there and I will happily deal with the repercussions in due time.”

People just wanna feel empowered. In all my professional roles, i give them that dynamic above me voluntarily, because i get my sense of power from my lifestyle as an Artist. Jade E.T. dominates during her “me / free time”, so i have the ability to subject myself to those looking to catch a portion of that sensation through an interaction with me.  I am very generous. 

“Alright, I will bring it up to Coach [managers name].”

I turned into Apu from The Simpsons, bc i literally have a compulsive urge to use humor as a coping mechanism.

“Dank U have a gudday!” 

My tone was obvious, she walked off in a huff, and we tied in our debate, settling on how one person playing the infinite time card and their match playing a finite time card ultimately makes 0 time for each other. Because both are accurate, correct, true, and fair in all scenes; we just gotta play both those cards in synchrony with folks who swim together.

 ~~~~

Okay so back to the belief subscriptions. Pretty obviously, the last 5 years i was involved with my former partner showed a lot of my real beliefs, and exemplified some values i wanted to live in. However, the content within the emotional reality of that was fragmented, but like, Kintsugi so we lived on and on.

It was the Edgar Winter influence in my favorite band.

Once upon a time, it was like today last year. 

If there's one thing you know about me - it’s that i am a music fan. In the lead up to the new album drop, i mindfully absorbed the content created in the band’s media platforms. One of the multiple reasons this band rules is the manner in which they embody duality - many in one & one in many is the translation of their name. I adore their wearing polarities perfectly. They have a high status in the planet of musical artists out there today, with international attention and plenty of proof in the sheer number of Likes, Hearts, Views, Plays, Comments, they earn. When the garage band from my college years earwormed the masses with their hit single, I admire how they took advantage of their popularity to say something i find incredibly important.

I’m not really on the bandwagon, but rather biking alongside it. When my fone algorithm showed me a clickable magazine interview from the band, i put my phone down, and meditated for like a day or two or maybe even 3 about how excited i am to read this interview. Really more like, building hype and preserving heart for the ways my relationship with the band warmly increases as i acquire new knowledge about who they are. I’ve always done that with these musicians. Absorbed them slowly and gradually over time, savoring their persona as mine blooms in tune with theirs. Saving myself in the allure of mysterious artistry, who i am relating to this band is a beautiful, divinely timed, unfolding. 

The interviewer: so you guys got some new music for your upcoming summer shows. what are you debuting? 

the band: ~our song Champ feat. Edgar Winter.

The interviewer, enthused: ooh from the 1970s, i remember.

the band: ~yea u know we always wanted to work with jeff bhasker, since he’s such a bigtime producer, and i was just hanging out in the studio one day when natalia lafourcade was there so we made a track, we got all these opportunities open to us from the success of feel it still so we seized that. with edgar, we really felt like we wanted to sort of merge musical generations. 

The interviewer: fabulous… … … 

The band goes on to talk about how they dropped an album a year for 5 years, before they wrote the album with their song which won a grammy award. I discovered there was an unfinished album in the making titled- Doomin’ n Gloomin’. While coming up with material over the course of time, one of the singers was back home when he found an original ticket to Woodstock, a famous music festival his dad apparently attended. The instance activated a new line of reasoning to the singer/songwriter. 

i know! Why don’t I, instead of making music that sounds like glooming and dooming, make music that brings people together. The 1969 festival encapsulated the impact of utilizing music as a vessel to spread peace, luv, rainbows and butterflies and generally an upbeat outlook on life. All the inspiring messages of hippie hazy indie are righteously better for society than making music on more messes from how shitty the world could feel sometimes. We don’t need more toxic vibes; perhaps we could need a tiny revolution like woodstock.  

In conclusion, I’m a Believer. A follower. A fan. A friend. AF! While i think of consciousness as by and large free, there is still something to be said for ideas and concepts so gripping on your mind, whenever your hands are doing anything, it is the action, manifestation, pursuit, of said ideas and concepts. I’ve actually got a lot to show, ya kno, for how im spending my one wild and precious life in dedication of those who are inside the same ideas and concepts as i am. People n places, that’s transient; you can change your mind but what haunts inside you owe to Life.