Karma Chameleon

So just write. Sit down and write. It’s what you want to do. It’s when you feel the most free. All the suavity, all the wit, all the wisdom you feel inside can be expressed, instead of remaining pent up as it does in the waking world. The world inhabited by you and others. But here, in this literary existence, the rules are mine. No lack of confidence holding my tongue silent, no over thinking complexities, no mold to fit. So write what you feel. What you wished you’d feel. I’ve realized I’m Kerouac’s ‘Sal Paradise.’ The consummate observer, always willing to go along, but never the instigator. The California summer was the greatest of my life, but it wouldn’t have come about without Ryan. His was the idea, I was just the back up. The companion he needed to go through with it. And I know there’s a level of respect given to me for going through with it. For leaving everything behind with a half-baked idea and, and this is where the respect comes in, making it work. Or maybe that’s not where it comes in. Maybe had we been total failures and come crawling back penniless it would have been the same. Well you tried. Bloody failed but you tried. That wasn’t the case though. We believed that it would all be golden, and it was. Make your own luck? Maybe. Want something bad enough, you make it happen, or simply believed it happened, whether it did or not.

Or maybe this is all wrong. Maybe I just have a low opinion of myself. *Yes* shouted the chorus in the wings. In Morocco I felt the instigator. I was the one hup hupping everyone to make it down for the camel trek. Coordinating, setting it all up. And only part of that was my command of French and the others lack. A lot of it was me seeing what I wanted to do, and urging it to be done. So maybe it’s just in the company we keep… Stand me next to the outspoken and I’m the background character. The accomplice. The follower. But then in another story, I'm the adventurous one. The one seizing and throttling the day. They’re the parts we play. We’re all actors on this great stage. Pick the role you want, when you want, and you’re golden. But more often it’s fitting into the roles that are there waiting for us. Playing the unfilled character. Is everyone like this? Or is this my thing? Do other people have their personality set, whether it’s the forceful, dominant character, or the quiet, meeker one, and they play that role always, no matter the company they keep? Whereas I’m the chameleon. The shape changer.

Watch out, for you never know where I might be hiding.