So…. Austin! Austin was incredible. I felt new after leaving
there. In Austin, I was at the height of my trip. In my third week and really
feeling that there was no turning back. I was on the journey and I could chose
to experience each city or just use them as map dots on my way home. After such
an amazing experience in New Orleans, I was expecting great things from Austin,
especially because it would reunite me with my soul sister, Beth, from back
home, as she’d moved there in September.
Upon arriving in Austin, I quickly discovered that no one
there is what they seem. Not in some L.A. Confidential way where “everything is suspect and every one is
for sale,” but in the sense that everyone is actually there to do something
else. A mini New York, in its own right, “I’m not really a waitress” could be
its motto. Or, perhaps, “I’m not really a car salesman.” I discovered my soul
sister’s roommate, Alex, is actually the lead singer of a rockin’ band called
Fouled Out. They played the rooftop at
the Blind Pig Pub on 6th Ave, or “the dirty six” one of the nights I
was there.
Everyone in Austin is doing something: making
music or art or something of him or herself. They’re all striving to do or be
what they want to be. And putting themselves out there. I could feel the energy
of hope and possibility in every hand I shook. Everyone there truly believes
they’re big day is coming. There’s no cynicism like you might find in New York
– in fact, I found I had to put it out of my own mind. Alex admitted, though,
that even if Fouled Out doesn’t go anywhere, at least when he’s 40 he knows
he’s doing what he loves. It reminded me of that graduation speech that Baz
Luhrman turned into a pop song in the ‘90s, “Wear Sunscreen.” One of the lines
in the song, or speech, read,
“don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.” - Mary Schmich
So, at the very least, with each year I spend spinning, I’m at least becoming more interesting. Right?!
Being in Austin, though, gave me a renewed faith in myself.
Faith in my quest to be what I want and do what I want. Why can’t I be a
writer? Why shouldn’t that be my career goal? I’ll never get better if I don’t
work at it. And I’ll never know if people like what I write unless I publish it
for them to read. It’s the most cliché adage of all time and I’m sorry I don’t
have a cool, fancy, writer way to express it but the frankest way to say is,
I’ll never know until I try. And Austin is full of people who are just there to
try. It’s bold, really. The people in Austin are all, it seems, there to try
something new or be somewhere new. It’s sort of like a Neverland filled with
Lost Boys. Except these orphans aren’t looking to be lost, they’re hoping to be
found. Discovered. By themselves or something greater. It’s inspiring.
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