But what if you find yourself reflecting upon your own life, and it seems kind of, well -- made up?
As I was walking down a rainforest path, after having seen a geographic feature in real life that I had onced dreamt many years ago, I entertained the thought that I don't really exist. I bring this up to my friend (who I met the day before, and we settled in as if we'd known each other for a lifetime), and ponder if life could be so far off from the Matrix. I look down at my feet, and there are these beautiful cement bricks laid long ago that have been
Ok, I must pause here. It is 7:33am. I need to get these thoughts out before I head out for the day. With my roommate still sleeping, I put on my headphones and open iTunes. After a few shuffled songs of various artists, I crave Eddie Vedder's voice. I start with "Hunger Strike" from back in the day of Temple of the Dog. Then I'm hooked, that's EXACTLY whose voice I want to hear today. I set up random shuffle for all Pearl Jam songs. I have so many songs in many versions, from different live acts, that I haven't heard them all. The next random song is "Soon Forget" live from Seattle 11-6-2000. It is yukelele-based, and since I was really craving Eddie Vedder's voice, I almost fast-forwarded it to something more vocal. "No, I'll keep it playing," I thought, because I wanted to quickly open a Word Document (where I jot down my thoughts & ideas) before I forgot. I remember formulating a hair-brained plan to invite Pearl Jam to Panama for some kind of benefit concert, since I know Eddie is into causes. I type a few different lines before I find one I like: "Save the Frogs Benefit Concert -- PEARL JAM, Panama City, Panama." I change the font and size, save it, and continue writing this blog. The song I was going to fast-forward ends, and I hear Eddie's voice saying, "Now while we have a microphone and we have a platform for the last time in a long time we have to be home, I'm just going to say something that really didn't affect the show at all and mostly thanks to you for having such good energy, but we had a frustrating period in the last two days dealing with the city. And even though this is a show where all the proceeds, every dollar that you spent, is going to a number of different organizations in the city, a few nationally, I think it's almost $500,000 in two days, I'm guessing, but I think that's it. I don't know if it's post WTO-syndrome or something, but they're really paranoid in this city these days and really overcompensating with security and in fact, if every one of you left right now and only the security people were here, and no offense -- I'm sure some of you are nice people, but there would be 270 people in yellow shirts which is a bigger crowd than most small bands get. It's bordering on ridiculous. And I think we feel the need publicly to say that that's a cost usually $6,000 for security. Tonight, because the city was demanding this of us to have this show, they were. It's insulting, because of what we went through in Denmark, the last thing that we're even going to open ourselves up to is some kind of unsafe situation. And for them to go overboard on us, and you ask when will you get some respect in this town? When will music get some respect in this f*cking town? Let the kids go to teen dance shows, let them go to dance clubs, let them have an outlet. Look at this crowd tonight. They've been well-behaved. I've been to a number of other things where people are well-behaved. Give youth some responsibility to be able to prove themselves. They handled themselves much better than most people at SeaHawks games, believe me. So the cost of tonight, I don't know if it was just tonight or if it was over the two nights, but instead of $6,000 it was $25,000 for the extra people in yellow shirts, and that's $25,000 that's not going to go to one or a few of the groups that needed it. And I just feel like we needed to air that out so we can sleep well tonight and feel like we did a good job."
Okay, I'll start over:
"We are the arquitects of our own lives." Someone said that once, right?
But what if you find yourself reflecting upon your own life, and it seems kind of, well -- made up?
As I was walking down a rainforest path, after having seen a geographic feature in real life that I had onced dreamt many years ago, I entertained the thought that I don't really exist. I bring this up to my friend (who I met the day before, and we settled in as if we'd known each other for a lifetime), and ponder if life could be so far off from the Matrix. I look down at my feet, and there are these beautiful cement bricks laid long ago that have been left to the elements, to shift and get overgrown to their cement hearts' desire. They are beautiful, and magical, and exactly what I would expect to see if I were in Narnia, or if I were designing the set of my Life.
Life does seem just a bit juvenile, with a creative design that could only be bridled by the constraints of the mind of, let's say...a 5-year-old Me.
If 5-year-old Me were to invent my surroundings, what would they look like? Well, I'm 5. So I like school buses. But not just plain school buses, but super-decked-out school buses painted with whimsical designs, and feather boas hanging from the windshield, and stickers everywhere. Ooooooh, and lights. YES! Let's put some strings of lights on the buses. And every morning going to work, let's pass through PARADISE. But wait, let's make it exotic, so we'll speak Spanish, and we'll call it PARAISO. Oh yeah, that's better.
Ok, so I'm still 5, and I have to work. So what would I like to do? ooh ooh, FROGS! Yes, I love frogs! Okay, I'm going to work with frogs. But wait, this is my Life, let's make it good. I want to work with extinct frogs. Wait, EXTINCT frogs?!?!? Yes, Erica, extinct in the wild. Ok, that WOULD be cool, to try to save the little froggies who are being killed off by this big bad EVIL fungus. Where should these frog tanks be placed? Hmmm, I know! A ZOO!! Yes, ok, a zoo. But I'm 5, so I get bored, so let's make another frog project in another zoo. This time in a magical land of volcanoes. Perhaps a cloudforest? How about a cloudforest valley that was created by volcanoes eons ago? That sounds cool. Let's call it the VALLEY, because I'm 5 and that's the best I can think of. But let's make it Spanish so it sounds more exotic: EL VALLE. Sweet. But I want to make it MY valley, so since I live in Ancon, I'll call it something similar: EL VALLE DE ANTON. Just so my friends' parents don't get lost when they come over to drop off my friends. And over in El Valle, we're going to save more magical extinct frogs. Let's call them Panamanian GOLDEN frogs. And from there, I better check out my surroundings. I think I'll invent some beautiful lush green MOUNTAINS that come soaring out of the ground like the dormant volcanoes they are. I did have a dream with some cool mountains in it, let me invent those. And I'll make the climate cooler, so it'll be the perfect temperature and it will rain a little. What 5-year-old doesn't love to play in the RAIN?
Ok, my World is soooooo cool, I wonder what else we can do? I love climbing trees. Let's make special trees. How? Hmmm, I know! Tree trunks are usually round, so I wanna make my trees different. I know I know! A different shape...how about square? Yes, SQUARE trees. And I like hot tubs, but we're in nature, so I'll invent natural hot SPRINGS. ooh ooh, I almost forgot my favorite activity -- horseback riding! I'll put lots of pretty HORSES here so I can go HORSEBACK RIDING whenever I want. And surely I'm not the only one who loves this cool place I invented, so I'll let rich people live there in their big mansions in a neighborhood of millionaires. I almost forgot - it must be in Spanish: LOS MILLONARIOS. Oh, I also like to hike in the woods, so I'll invent lots of hiking trails. And my house back in Pennsylania has a lot of Native American history, and one of those mountains kind of looks like a sleeping indian woman, so I'll call her LA INDIA DORMIDA, and I'll make hiking trails to explore the area. Oh I love EXPLORING! So here in El Valle there will be lots of horses, and hiking trails, and WATERFALLS, and a SECRET TUNNEL at the top of the mountain where there's a gold mine. No no no. We already have GOLDEN frogs, we can't have a gold mine too. Ok, be creative, be creative... how about a copper mine? That'll do. So at the top of the sleeping indian mountain, there's a secret tunnel from an old COPPER MINE. Cool!
Phew, all this inventing has worked up a hunger. I'll catch a ride back into town with a taxi driver who was so nice to me, Fran. We'll just call him FRAN because that's what they call my best friend's sister for some reason, and I always thought that name was funny. And I'm still 5. Back in town we're looking for food. I'm with my friends, let's call them JAMIE, because I have lots of friends named Jamie and James, and JASON, because it sounds good with Jamie. And speaking of names, I want my name to be something cool. What if my last name were WRONA, so when you say my name it comes out AIR CORONA. That's perfect! CORONA means CROWN in Spanish, and I've always liked pretending I'm a princess. ooooh ooooh, I can be the PRINCESS and I'm looking for my FROG PRINCE! Perfect!
Ok, so me, Jamie, and Jason are hungry. We had fun feeding the zoo animals kernels of corn, and those parrots who were saying "HOLA" to us, so cuuuute!
Hmmm, food. If I were 5, I would want meat on a stick. SHISH KA BOBS! Wow, only $1, because everything is affordable in my World. That was delicious, but now I want dessert. Oooooh, snowcones! Strawberry, grape, and all these other crazy flavors I've never heard of (I'm finally getting inventive). And condensed milk to make it really sweet and delicious.
Ok, all full. We better go home soon. The bus to get here was so fun, with all the twists and turns. I put my arms in the air and pretended we were on a roller coaster. We better walk to the bus area and see how to get back to the city. I always have good luck in my World. We got the LAST 3 seats of the LAST bus of the day going back to Panama City, where we live on a little hill with all our friends in a building that kind of looks like a bird cage. Hey, we can pretend we're birds, like in the zoo! Let's call our home the CAGE: LA JAULA.
P.S. If anybody reading this thinks that I actually made this all up, I didn't.
It's my life.
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