Pluto Projector

The cool thing about TikTok is that it exposes you to new music and different artists. This song pretty much catapulted my dry spell of not writing leisurely. Rex Orange County has some other hits as well. You guys should check them out!

I want to talk briefly about the quiet moments writers don’t talk about when our minds are going 100 miles an hour, but the words just won’t come out. This feeling is torturous. I hate when I feel like I need to write, but nothing comes out. I’d rather have a foggy mind or something because the fogginess eventually goes away. It’s so hard to slow down my brain sometimes when I know there’s something I need to write, but it isn’t quite coming out correctly.

The other day, my brain slowed down and I wrote two chapters of a new project I’ve been wanting to start. I didn’t know how I should start it, so I started with myself… if that makes any sense to anyone. I’m writing something that I wish I could read. I’m writing for myself again and that’s beautiful in itself. I’ve been doing a lot of things for myself lately. I like that.

Anyways, I really did want to talk about the lyrics to this song and how they’ve inspired me. One lyric says, “am I man to understand my faults?” I went into a very deep quandary about this question… was I really meant to understand myself 100% of the time? I then thought about all of the times I projected who I thought I was supposed to be to appear likable when in reality, it made my understanding of self worse. I think I understand myself a bit more than yesterday. I don’t put pressure on the unknown anymore either. I appear to be someone else to different people anyway, so there’s not a need to put any pressure on appearance. The girls that get it, get it, and the girls that don’t, don’t.

I had a talk with a friend about detachment and why he was so good at it. Although I don’t necessarily agree with some of what he said, I think there were a couple of things I could learn about his way of detachment. Ignoring. I tend to dwell on those sad emotions and let them sit and sit until I believe those things to be true about myself, but if I felt those feelings, let them move past me, and then occupy my time with doing things I love. I love writing, I love listening to music, I love going to River City, I love naps, and I love hanging out with my friends. So now I’m doing all of those things and life doesn’t seem as hard… even if I have a grey hair at 23 to prove it.

I think my conclusion in all of my deep diving is that I want to do things that make me happy and be around people that bring out the good parts of me as well. I think that although I don’t understand myself most of the time, I know that I want peace and I will do whatever it takes to get there. Now that I am learning the law of detachment, I think I am one step closer to “understanding myself.”

May Your Kindness Remain

A friend sent me this song a year and a half ago, and I remember crying to it the first time heard it. The build-up is beautiful and so are the lyrics. It resonated deeply with me during a time I was trying to figure myself out and navigate the attention of others. It sums up the feeling of being desired but not understood. It’s about being kind when you have nothing left but your soul pretty much.

This used to be the go-to song that I’d play when life was messy. I sometimes go back to it, like days like today when I don’t think kindness is something that’s ever benefited the person showing it. I love showing people that I care about them but when it isn't returned, it hurts. I want to make sure people never feel what I felt, but I end up feeling it anyways in the end, so what’s the point? Maybe that’s the ego talking, but it’s true. It can drain a person… always being the one giving.

I don’t care if anyone sees this one if I’m being honest. I have no plans of promoting it anywhere other than Jambolan Wind Area on Instagram, so I’m not going to be upset if anyone sees this one.

But anyway, maybe it’s me though, maybe I’ve always chosen people who never really cared to show me the kindness they show towards their buddies or whatever. It’s kind of insane to think about all of the times I have put others’ feelings before my own. I tiptoe on a glass floor that’s already cracked. Kindness seems like glass to me, and so does the word nice and grace (with the exception of my niece Gracie, I love you).

I think I can recall one guy that has shown me kindness throughout my years of dating. His name rhymed with Pam. We’re going to call him “Pam” throughout this story. Pam was a very special guy and he is the only reason why I keep trying at this point. I met Pam about a year ago around this time. We lived two houses down from each other and I was always curious about him when I saw him walk his big black dog with his Chacos on and his big straw hat. Just by his walk, I knew how goofy and wholesome he’d be… and he was. I won’t get into detail about the little time we spent together because I’d like to keep that private, but Pam is the only guy that has shown me genuine kindness, and I knew it was kindness. I didn’t have to question it. I never questioned if he was just saying certain things because of the circumstances that were. He was genuine.

Pam showed up in all of my poems after I met him. He showed up in my short stories and scripts… I felt like I could eloquently write a man that “was written by a woman” because meeting him almost felt like he was. I honestly think he’s the only exception to any of what I was saying before that paragraph. Some people you could just tell they were good by the way they looked at you. You could tell they’ve been through a lot, but you could tell that they chose to keep going. I think that’s why I always found comfort in writing about him. I often wonder if I was that to other people because I never told him how grateful I was for his kindness. So Pam, if you ever stumble across my blog, thank you.

A couple of weeks passed by and this was stuck in the drafts. I think I still feel the same about kindness as I did when I wrote it.

Ok, Love You Bye

When I write in my journal, I usually title the entry as a song title. It’s just been something I’ve always done, so I’m going to implement it in my blog. “Ok Love You Bye,” by Olivia Dean has been stuck in my head all week. Listening to love songs made me ask myself recently… have I ever truly experienced love? And why was the idea so addicting to me?

I don’t think I’ve truly ever been in love with someone. It used to bother me that I’ve never felt it. How could I crave something I know nothing about? Does loving someone feel different than loving a friend platonically, or a family member? It has to be similar, right? I mean, it shows up in every single thing I write. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing a poem or a short story, the main theme will always, always be love. And don't get me started on Rom-Coms, they are so addicting! I love the cliché chick-flick movies. I love romanticizing my life and acting as if I’m the main character because life is too short to not see the beauty in everything I do. Just my opinion.

I like how I’ve spent every day so far in my life because it has led me to this moment right here. I feel content with where I’m at in my life. It’s uncomfortable and weird and although I’m scared of what’s to come next, I’m starting to welcome in those moments. I might not know how loving someone else feels like, but I know how it feels to love myself and award myself some extra grace that the world doesn’t give. That’s beautiful in itself, right?

Today, I finished my green journal and started a new one. It’s always strange, and yet refreshing starting a new one. It’s like letting go of an era or something. This last one was so special to me, though. I probably grew the most this past year. I learned to love myself in every messy stage I’ve been in this past year. As I’m writing, I’m realizing that maybe loving myself has been enough this entire time. Maybe I don’t need to know, maybe they could never truly love me the way I needed to be loved anyway.

I have to keep reminding myself that I’m only 23, but it pains me to think about all the time I’ve wasted with people who weren’t sure of me. Every time something ends, I’m reminded that I think of the world and love differently than others. Sure, being with someone that it just makes sense to be with is okay for some, but that’s not what I want for me. I don’t think people realize how emotionally unavailable they are sometimes, and I crave a connection. That’s the part of a relationship I want, and I can’t imagine one without it when I show up for myself every single day.

Like the hopeless romantic I am, I picture the moment I’d know when I was in love with a guy. Would my foot go up when we shared a kiss like in The Princess Diaries? Or would “Kiss Me,” by Sixpence None The Richer play in my head when I saw them? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Today’s The Day…

After months of procrastinating and making excuses, I finally decided to hunker down and officially publish this website. Whoop whoop! Of course, there are some kinks I have to fix as I go. I am very new to this! However, in this moment, I feel very good about the direction this is going and I can’t wait to see where it takes me. We are in a weird time and I feel like maybe it would help to read something positive about our community we love. I can’t wait to hit the ground rolling, but first, I must find my first Fleeting Legend. I have some ideas, and hopefully the collective could help me along the way for more articles about our entrepreneurs in our community. This will be a short blog post for today. Thank you everyone for your support! I can’t wait to share my first Fleeting Legend! Stay tuned!

-Daija Brown

Behind The Fleeting Legend

I thought it to be fitting to have a separate space for my blog so I could vent, talk to you guys, or just talk to myself, rather. This is the side of my work where I don’t care if anyone reads it. This blog is for me. I want to be candid about my life, work, relationships, or what-have-you. At this moment, I need some sort of escape in this world. Some sort of positivity. The only thing I could think of at this moment was talking to people who have overcome obstacles. I want to help put their stories out to encourage someone else who wants to walk down similar paths.

I want to be honest about something. I have never seen myself work a conventional 9-5 job. I never wanted to be a part of the modern-day slavery that our capitalist society has forced us to be a part of. I don’t want to look forward to the weekends, and most importantly, I want to love my work. I love to write. I want this to one day be my job, but for some of us, we aren’t as lucky to have the internships, the free time, or the means to work for experience and volunteer in-between a full-time job. I created this website so I could work around my schedule, and no one else’s.

My goal at the end of the day is to create and inspire people to just fucking do it. Unapologetically. I think it’s easy to let people project their failed dreams and aspirations on others.

Anyways, this blog will be short and sweet because this is supposed to be an “introduction,” if you will. I hope you enjoy reading the stories of the Fleeting Legends, and I hope you enjoy reading my story as well.

-Daija Brown