Taking Back the Light

Time marches on while I dance in the garden, dressed in garlands of bougainvillea and ripe yellow roses. I am not a soldier, and I do not march. I will not act my age, or be dictated by a calculation between the year I was born and today’s date. You, all of you, can continue to play your games, bien sur, just don’t deal me in.

I am on a train to Monaco, past the rocky precipice of the blue French Med. I am on a beach in Rio, shouting back at the coconut man in Portuguese. I’m sitting on my stoop in Brooklyn, watching the hipsters pass by. That’s how I roll.

Wine school? Hell, yeah, and I’m doing it in Colorno, in the province of Parma. What about the international TV business? Sure. I happen to be an expert.

So, form an orderly queue. I’m not taking numbers. And I’m not giving mine. Who said soft couldn’t be hard? Who said sweet-looking blonde girls have to behave like fluffy little bunny rabbits? I do not come when called. I come when I want to. And seeing as I can come on my own, you better bring something more to the table.

Surprise me. But don’t expect me to be waiting at home for you to show up with your token of ‘wow’. I might just be dancing in the garden. Garden, whose garden? Hmmm, that would be too easy, now wouldn’t it?

And now, for some decoding:

Right, I have been lectured left and right, from a New Yorker to a Paulista (Brazilian from Sao Paulo), about not being too available, about keeping my cards close to my chest, about having it my way. A bender, pleaser, organizer, pacifier, this does not come natural for me. Should we assume that all of our natural instincts are for the best, that there is no room for improvement? I beg to differ.

It is fundamental to recognize, value and respect one’s own achievements, because if we can’t shine a light on ourselves, we must always wait for others to come round and do it for us. Which doesn’t really work in the end. And so, I’m shining my own light. Which means I might stop listening so much, waiting to be validated.

It’s kind of like coming off drugs, the realization that one can and must have a ‘good time’ without substances. Compliments, positive reinforcement and attention are all drugs. They feed us from the outside, and don’t last very long. They can often take us lower than where we started from. If I know my own worth, that is indivisible, independent from situation and circumstance, and is really the ultimate freedom.

The only person I need to please is myself. Why would I want to please anyone else? The very action presupposes that what I bring to the table isn’t good enough. Well, there will be no spectacle this evening, or any other evening. What you see is what you get. If it don’t jive, it ain’t jazz. And everything I’ve gone through to get to this place is a blessing. It is my journey.