“Noise-canceling head phones over my ears. Raining. Drinking my hot Starbucks coffee as I peer out from the California Adventure Starbucks shop. People watching. Listening to the On Earth Volume 2 album being immersed in a world of violins and synths. Journeying on. Reading a chapter of Big Magic. Feeling the movement of my floor, my space being shared yet feeling so separate. Traveling to a different world. Writing in my journal overwhelmed with gratitude. Creating. Breathing. Exhaling. Repeating. Living. Realizing I am alive, and it feels good.”
Those feelings above is as close as I can get to my very own heart-beat of the magic that took place at the happiest place on earth, thanks to a a dear friend holding my commitment to an “artsy Disney day” that she kindly reminded me about for the last 3 years.
Marqui, I cannot thank you enough for being so patient with me.
It was magical because I felt that I was able to steep myself in uninterrupted time with creativity and inspiration, and it’s was way over-due.
After spending a few hours creating, I was so excited to see where our “Coffee and Conversation” would take Marqui and me. If you know her, she is quiet and only speaks when she feels like she has something to say or she has a really hilarious meme or a “woke” quote from her Tumblr feed to share.
She agreed with doing a “Coffee and Conversation” piece with me, but she asked if I was okay with writing something with angst, which made me more adamant about scheduling this with her because angsty stories are the best ones to write.
She felt that her and art weren’t at a good place at the moment, and she didn’t feel that it was a story worth telling, but we all need to rest in the fact that
deferred dreams is a human experience that needs to be shared and heard.
She explains her struggle with finding purpose and reasons to draw. Please take time to embrace and relate to the uncertainty and angst that defines the human experience:
“It became hard to find a point to do it (draw). Back then, I would show my art (Disney character drawings) to the Disney characters, but I moved out to Las Vegas. I can only come out here once a month. I would maybe get Instagram likes here or there, but I would get my kicks, my jingles, from these characters. It might have just been for their reaction with them saying “Oh, I like that” or “I look cool!”. It showed me a little self-value. After being so far away and not being able to go to Disney as often, I found myself not happy, and I didn’t realize that I began to rely on that.”
I heard her current reality, and as a friend, it hurt because I knew my friend was hurting, so I posed a question: where would you like to be? She answered my question with a question about a video-game:
“Have you ever played the Last of Us? Did you ever see how it started? At the beginning, the character you play is a dad named Joel, and you see the outbreak start, and Joel’s daughter gets shot and dies. The video game actually starts years later. The dad is all gruffly and angry, and everything since the passing of his daughter. I don’t recall why this conversation started between Joel and this other random girl he ends up watching and protecting, but yeah, this little girl tells him a story. In this game, she is immune to the disease from the outbreak that was making people into monsters or zombies, and she was talking about her best friend, Riley. Her and her friend got bit, and they both were waiting to change into zombies together, but the little girl never did. She had to run away from her friend, Riley, that turned into a monster. She told the guy who lost his daughter, “I am still waiting for my turn”.
She continued.
“The little girl looks like she is struggling to see what is the point of things and the purpose of life. Joel begins to tell her that he has struggled a long time surviving, but no matter what you need to keep finding something in life to fight for. Find whatever makes you happy. I now ask myself that question, what makes me feel happy. This is something I do which may sound stupid. Sometimes I wake up and think, “I may not feel like waking up today, but at least Kingdom Hearts 3 is coming out next month” or “Hey, don’t you want to see Dumbo. I heard that there will be some Frozen 2 trailers happening in front of it.” You know stupid stuff like that.”
Marqui ended her “Coffee and Conversation” with this question that shook me to my soul:
“Have you ever heard the saying, “A drowning man will clutch to a straw”?
After hearing her ask me that, I could not help but sit with that. We began to talk about the importance of finding our straws in painful and suffocating seasons in life and not belittle that straw for how much breath it gives because any drowning person would say, a breath is a breath, and it brings life nevertheless.
Keep breathing even if it is from a straw. Whatever gives you that breathe, a video game, Disneyland, hanging out with good friends, take it in no matter how small.
We all need to find our straws in seasons that you feel that you are drowning; Find your straw.
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