Strikes, Private Jets, and The 2 %

While the writers and actors were on strike, my So Cal plan burned with the other 4,662 fires in the state. My friend from Chicago Med said, “I’m in a horrendous mood, I’ll call you when it’s over.” A job that could put me in Ibiza five years ahead of schedule fell into my lap, but it was in Missoula…

I felt like I’d been in Barcelona the previous two years asking Columbus for directions. Barcelona Columbus is a 200-feet statue the world argues over which direction he’s pointing. Consensus is unlikely since it was constructed in 1888 and people still don’t have anything better to talk about. I wondered if my destination was to be cemented in eternal debate as well, because by the time the guilds found a sage consensus, I was running the private terminal at one of Missoula’s FBO’s and potentially on my way to a Spanish work visa. I asked myself daily if I’d been pointing east the whole time rather than south. Or west, if I wanted to fly over Japan. I was translating arrival-departure sheets into Catalan, one of the official languages of the island: Would you like a hangar this evening? T’agradaria un hangar aquesta tarda?

Moving back to Spain had always been the end game: open a vegan café, open a recording studio, open a book on the beach and never get up again. Yet, my heart still broke over the arid mountains of the Mexican border, and I yearned to be there finally doing my part. All of the changes around and within me, so many hopes turning on their heels, and Montana’s own fire smoke pouring into the rock bed of Missoula, pushed me to the precipice of the concept of certainty. The only thing I was certain of was that I was tired of being certain, and striving didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. Flames burst under the L.A. chunk of Highway 10 and it shut down, making its already-compressed traffic implausible to comprehend. Necessites servei de lavabo avui? Do you need lavatory service today?

I decided to become that annoying person who lets things come to them. To stay put and see what “unfolded naturally”, i.e., allow uninvited plans to come wandering into my life like my cat bringing live bats home while I’m sleeping. I moved closer to the airport and signed a lease with the amenities of a balcony, a dishwasher, and another Montana winter. I watched private jets drop more cash in one day than I made in a year teaching Spanish to high schoolers. Single-rider 747’s sucked up $20,000 worth of fuel in one gulp and I ran the credit cards with a smile like I was born to do it. As a flight attendant in my 20’s, I’d been shocked by the endless recyclables hitting the country’s trashes, but this was next level aviation pollution. I didn’t think I could do this job in Ibiza—couldn’t participate in it. But a visa was on the line, and my odds of running into Jake Gyllenhaal were up because celebrities were landing in droves. I daydreamed about him strolling up to my glossy counter, remembering me from the bakery in Beverly Hills, and saying, “It’s you! I’ve been kicking myself for years not asking if you wanted help taking that bread to the shelter.” “Yes!” I would reply, and so on. Alas, only pilots came inside, and wealthy families whose children couldn’t keep track of which state they were in. All the while, I couldn’t shake that human creativity almost went down by way of artificial intelligence. My brain was melting.

I missed work that had a purpose, so in the fall, I unfolded my way back to the high schoolers, a lower paycheck, and a long-ass drive across town. While the arctic blasts of winter berated my apartment windows, I completed a grueling online course in immigration interpreting. As winter rambled on in a tirade of gray, Whitefish Review asked me to run the comedy-writing contest I’d won the previous year. Spring came as a surprise, as it always does in Montana, and with it, the most astounding call of my life. A twenty-year dream had tracked me down: If I wanted a full ride to audio engineering school in San Diego, I had one.

Women make up 2% of audio engineers in the music and film industry combined, and I’ve wanted to be one of them since I was twenty. From 2000-2016, I climbed the electronic music ladder like a boss, turning out lyrics and melodies and laying down vocals all over the world. Though I got burned ceaselessly by managers, producers, engineers, and DJ’s, I figured it was part of the undertaking. But then it struck me that everyone I had ever worked with were men. That as a woman, it didn’t matter how massive my contacts got, how monumental the studios became, how exclusive the parties, or even the moments I stood right on center stage: The ladder had been laying on the ground the entire time. Until I learned to run the studios myself, I’d be playing hop scotch between the rungs.

Billboard-topping Colette Marino (DJ Colette) laid it out for me after her performance in Modesto, California: “The only way you’re going to make it is to do it all yourself. Learn engineering. Learn production. Learn to DJ. This is your option. You can’t depend on anyone.” Passersby on my streaming platforms are her confirmation. No one could ever guess the work I’ve put in because my wins are hidden almost entirely behind mens’ names and the subsequent “< 1,000 plays” (Check your favorite House tracks by male producers and DJ’s. Now look for the women’s names singing on them. Most of the time, they’re not accounted for.) My burnout became existential. I released a single and an EP and then took a hiatus to write Nights in Santiago. This bought me some years, but just as Spain pulled at me for five years until I took the leap and moved there, audio’s been trailing me, and now, the Mexico border couldn’t be any closer. It feels like that same point of no return. Only there are less sacrifices, less excuses, and less instability. I’ve been on the waiting list for this scholarship for eight years. I let go only ten months ago. Maybe there’s something to losing. Summer, with its quick departure from flowering trees and soft rain, is a week away and I’m packing in Montana for the last time.