Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 25

Starting from Zero

I’m starting from zero. And it’s hard. It means ‘forgetting’ everything I’ve learned, everything I know. Especially when my instinct tells me to just press on, to keep going as if nothing has happened. As if everything is normal. But everything isn’t normal. Because I screwed up. Royally.

Running Through the Pain

I don’t remember when exactly the pain started in my foot. I just remember how, when my goal was a 15-km run, my foot began to throb when I hit 12 km. At that point, I still had to get ...

Getting Back to What Really Matters

After taking the month of August off to ‘rest and recharge,’ I’m easing back into a routine of sorts. I’ve always thought of September (or autumn) as the beginning of my creative cycle. It’s the time of year when I either start writing a new major work or begin rewriting a project that I’ve let rest for several months. And, usually, I bring boundless energy and enthusiasm to whatever I undertake. But this time, I’m coming at it all shaken and asking myself this: am I focused on what really matte...

Taking Time to Rest

About a week ago, I just stopped posting to social media. No warning. It wasn’t planned like some of my earlier off-the-grid exploits. There was just this urgent need to disconnect. And for the seven days that followed, I kept my phone off. (If there had been any type of emergency, I could have been reached through e-mail, which I was still checking sporadically.) When I rejoined the world, there were several messages across different social media platforms from people wondering if I was okay. I...

The Fix: Gratitude

I’m going to talk about the elephant in the room: COVID-19 fatigue. I’m not talking about the physical symptom associated with the virus — feeling weak, tired, or exhausted. What I’m talking about is the fatigue of hearing about it 24/7, 7 days a week. The earth-shattering, apocalyptic music news shows play as an intro to their coverage.

The virus has transformed, and continues to transform, so many aspects of our lives. And as people battle for their lives and ICUs reach capacity, I’m stunned. ...

How I Lost and Found My Groove

When I started my vacation on 10 March, it was just days before the world began to turn in on itself because of COVID-19. Nothing had really changed for me, though. I was still waking up around 3:30 or 4:00 to write while the rest of the world slept. Then, after a run, I’d return to the business of writing for a good chunk of the day before prepping dinner late in the afternoon. My evening ritual of either reading or watching reruns of Two and a Half Men rounded out the day. I had my groove on.

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2 Things You Can’t Take Away from Me…

There is a lot happening in the world that inspires, especially how, in different communities across the globe, we’ve come together to support each other during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are also things that cause us to pause and show the worst of man’s inhumanity to man, and, consequently, sends people marching into the streets to demand change. George Floyd’s death reflects the latter. Enter hope…

Clinging to Hope

Through these challenging and uncertain times, I cling steadfast to hope. The...

On Being Black

Last year, someone suggested in a tweet that I share my essay, “On Being Black.” My excuse, then, was that the timing was bad. I was in the middle of a major writing project. In an already ‘busy’ life, I didn’t have time to scour through file folders to find it and then retype it (the only copy I had was a scanned PDF version). But procrastinating one day, I searched it out and, after reading through it, thought, Share this? Absolutely not.

The essay stirred up a lot of emotion, and a feeling I’...

Take Positions for Takeoff – Part III: The Art of Patience

This is the third and final installment in the Take Positions for Takeoff series. As a reminder, in Part I: From Chaos to Possibility, I wrote about the initial impact of COVID-19 on my life. Then in Part II: Be Ready for Anything, I shared some of my experiences as a flight attendant. Now, lets talk about the biggest takeaway from my time in the aviation industry: patience.

Patience as Virtue

They say patience is a virtue. Maybe thats true. And I often thought of myself as a patient person ...

Take Positions for Takeoff – Part II: Be Ready for Anything

In my last blog post, From Chaos to Possibility (Part I of my series, Take Positions for Takeoff), I talked about the initial impact of COVID-19 on my life. Now, lets enter the real world of being a flight attendant with Part II: Be Ready for Anything.

A Glamorous Life

Some people think that being a flight attendant is glamorous. I thought that, too. Until I became one. It looks glamorous. And your followers on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram will ooh and aah as you post photos of yourself in...

Take Positions for Takeoff – Part I: From Chaos to Possibility

At an altitude of 38,000 feet, I always felt like I was flying towards possibility. That a mechanical, steel tube even got off the ground especially something like the Airbus 380 left me in awe. Until the day I caught a whiff of an electrical burning smell and shot out of my jumpseat, as did the rest of my colleagues. Anticipating a rapid descent into chaos, for the first time in my four years of working as a flight attendant I had one thought: This is it.

It wasnt. The flight diverted and...