“Pressure is a privilege.”
Billie Jean King
It has been a while since I put pen to paper and blogged. The pessimist inside of me tells me not to bother—no one reads these anyway, so what is the point? But the realist inside of me tells me to go ahead, as if anything, writing this is more for myself, a therapy more than anything else.
I find myself here in LA—well, Torrance, a sub-city within the second largest city in America. I was not expecting to come here; it just happened. Airport standby in my role as cabin crew, Friday morning, and within ten minutes of my shift starting, the phone rang, and preparations for the flight to LA began.
The flight here was packed, completely full, and it also had what we call a “positioning crew” onboard. These are crew members who are flying out to a destination as passengers but will be working a flight back. They were working on an Airbus A380 back, so that meant there were 22 of them, and it was a nightmare. They felt they could come and stand in the galley, open up workspace areas, and get things that they thought they were entitled to, when in reality they were only getting in the way of us, the operating crew, who were there to serve not only them but the actual fare-paying passengers. Too much information? Was I upset? A little. Did I get over it? Yes, I did.
Anyway, I went for a walk this morning. I was intending to walk down to the beach, but something told me not to, so I went for a meander around the local area instead. As I walked, several things came to mind. There are a lot of apartment blocks here, all named “The Mikado”, “San Bonito”, “Spencer Arms”, “Via de Amo”, and many more, and I started to think about America and how it came about—a mishmash of cultures, races, religions, people from all over the world who came to settle and live here. Of course, there are the indigenous people here as well, but what has that meant, what has that made America today?
It is a land full of conflict. Yes, some of it gets violent, but the majority of it is rooted in sport—professional, amateur, and college level. People find their tribe, their team, and then scream from the rooftops for victory. They become so passionate about success for these teams, these tribes that they follow, and it is a huge part of their culture, all stemming from the origins of bringing so many different people together.
I came across a “No Kings” protest demonstration outside the local city hall. Thousands of people had turned out to express their concerns about the land that they live in and how it is being governed. There were many different banners, most of them expressing how upset they are with the current administration and its leader, their President.
Now, I am not one for protesting; I would not normally arrange to be a part of something like this, but today something shifted within me. It was lovely to see people being able to get it out there, to express the concerns that they have, and in their minds, they are doing something about it. I stood there with a smile on my face as I watched their faces and their body language, as they were able to just let it out.
I walked away from the demonstration and immediately came to a small Japanese garden in the local cultural centre—beautiful, serene, a stark contrast to what was happening just a block away. I sat and watched the water cascade down the waterfall in the centre, and I thought about how the water was simply reacting to the environment that it found itself in. It was not resisting, it was not trying to be different, it was just going with the flow, but in doing so it was making a difference. Over time, that water will shape the rocks and the environment around it, it will give life to plants and animals that are able to take advantage of it, and it will make its mark, carving out its own design.
That struck me. We all can make a difference; sometimes it may not be seen, sometimes it may not be immediate, but the truth is, we can make a difference. Something has shifted, and I need to remember that, which is why I am writing this down now.
