A Moment Of Silence

In a city like Los Angeles, depending on where you live, is really rare to find "quietness". Everything in a metropolis like this hectic place is noisy, active, fast, crowded, specially if you're busy.

These past months, I've learned to appreciate those moments that brought some hygiene to my mind; whether it was while driving to location in my car at 5am while everyone snored around me or sitting on a fire escape well past sundown while smoking a cigarette as everyone was looking for me... I guess the word 'Escape' suited that well.

Nowadays, when the madness of production is on a rest, I sit outside my apartment at 1am and just see how everything gradually starts going silent. Some days its later on, more like at 3am, when the clubs start shutting down, when the police cars stop doing their crazy rounds with the helicopter and the spotlight randomly pointing at places.

The place where I live is a place that either you hate or love depending on the day. Its filled with people going by, every kind of people, tourists, students, girls out on the town, limousines, screams and then the occasional couple having sex somewhere you can't figure out where they are that are being entirely too loud. I used to have these neighbors that picked 2am to burst out in a full on fight. After 3 months of calling the police, they finally moved.

When I sit outside in observance, I sometimes ponder why am I here sitting, sipping my cold drink and smoking and not doing exactly the same out with these people... And I know the answer. I already did that.

When I was younger, and I do realize I'm not old, but say, when I was 15 yrs. old, I used to live in a vibrant place just like this, filled with clubs and booze and all that the party scene can bring. It was a great time, or at least I remember it so. But like everything after a while, it grows old and decadent, the same thing over and over again, so much that the security guards know you by name, they probably know all your outfits, what you usually drink and the number on your car plate.

From those days, I remember that after a while, going out with my brothers and their friends was the most fun, making ways to get those outings different each day, finding that our own thing, past hitting the clubs and doing what everyone was doing, was far more productive and fun. We found ourselves sometimes in much trouble but at least was something different.

And then there was that moment when everyone was past their energy level and just sat in silence in front of their selected decadent "Past-Midnight Snack" and just sighed. It was that moment of silence, where all the bullshit from trying to make the best of the night went away, and you just sat there reflecting on the next day, week or month. If we got very philosophical... maybe you could be planning for your next year or decade.

In those moments, depending on how deep you went, you kind of looked around and most of the times you found yourself realizing you were exactly where and with who you wanted to be and it was sort of magical.

There are a couple of people that were the usual last to go and part ways at 4am, and you knew that the next day it would be all over again and you would still enjoy cracking the same jokes and remembering past moments of silence. Hell, even the dog knew that those tranquil moments sitting on the side walk were very important to just lay and sigh with us.

Now, I sort of skip all the outing, and wait or look for that moment.

Now, I realize I don't really need to be exhausted to be in the mindset of finding that space in my head where I forget about my surroundings to keep in check that I need to think about things that I should ponder on.

The hard part is realizing that because of where and how I live today, I do most of these moments on my own. Right now, I can't turn to my side and see that familiar face that shares that moment of silence with me.

Months ago, I sat on this fire escape and gazed at the LA night lights. It was chilly, dirty and I was exhausted. The day wasn't over, and everyone was running like crazy trying to make the day's work, and in that environment I still found myself gazing at those lights and the activity around me and realizing that I needed to take a deep breath and listen to myself. Maybe to not forget of my path, maybe to not get caught in the frantic pace of my chosen life and the city's own heartbeat.

When I do this, whether it happens there or in the hall of my apartment, or maybe outside the stage at school, I often make silent pleas of what I want my life to be like, and right now I try to remember if I ever asked to be where I am right now.

When I find myself the time to be in true silence, depending on the day is a cleansing moment, or a reflective moment, or just a moment I find to protect myself from facing reality. Tonight, while sitting out and listening to the silence that a Tuesday night in Hollywood can bring, I don't know why I felt foreign but so at ease. At moments overwhelmed with realization, and asking myself that maybe many wishes came true in such a fast pace that I should had found more moments of silence to keep myself in check.

A year ago, or two... I know I asked fervently to be in the place I am right now, and when you ask for things, sometimes you don't quite grasp everything that comes with your desires and wishes. The things I've asked for in those moments of silence have in some way come to realization and I'm happy for that, because many of those wishes are of true satisfaction for me... some others need work, and patience... I just hope that I can still find moments of silence to keep myself in check and keep going.

I wonder if my friends have gotten those wishes from those inebriated moments of silence to come true. I wonder if the wishes I myself have made over the course of these years have proven themselves to be the right ones, or the ones I really need.

Some of those wishes I'm still wishing upon, and having some other wishes granted and having found that some were not exactly my flavor, I wonder too if those that haven't come around ever do get to come true, will I figure that I really didn't want them?

Maybe what I really need is more specificity.

Maybe we needed to ask back in the day, every now and then, to have these moments with the people that we were sharing those moments with.

Maybe the answer to the feeling I often get while pondering is that while wishing to live life, sometimes, you also have to wish to know how to live it, and be O.K. with it.

The utility of those moments in silence back in the day I see it now as our need to wind down and bare to the basics... to go to bed when everyone else was getting up, having a blank slate that allowed to start a new day having new refreshed attitudes about what a next day can bring, to keep going, and let go of the old scene and look for the new one... maybe it is still all about that.