Build Your Wings on the Way Down

The other day I found myself on a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles around sunset, the towering buildings distorting infinitely in each other's windowpanes.

Usually when people find themselves somewhere, it's a clichéd turn of phrase, a matter of convenience. But I had tagged along with a writer to do some videography for the magazine and she had arranged to meet the actress at a bar, which ended up being a bit too noisy for video. And that's how I found myself on a rooftop a couple of blocks down, watching the sun peep past the arrangement of monoliths we affectionately call a city.

I've only been working at this magazine for a couple of weeks, and already I've come face to face with a steady series of unfamiliar situations. Little things like video interviews and photographing for other people, where it's not so much fear that plagues me but the feeling of being extremely ill-equipped. 

Then as I was cleaning out my bookmarks yesterday, I found Neil Gaiman's 2011 New Year's Wish tucked between a Gregorian chant cover of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and an art school project involving planting trees in a circle so that they would grow into a natural hut. 

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. 

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. 

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. 

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

I've made plenty of mistakes this week - a fresh batch of memories that rush blood to my cheeks and make my feet twitch looking for a cave to run into and hide in. But this quote expresses the gratitude for opportunity and the understanding of what these mistakes really mean that keep pushing me forward into the path of new mistakes. Make mistakes, fake it 'til you make it - whatever you call it, I'm excited about this summer. I think it's going to be a good one.

Build Your Wings on the Way Down