Jason Mraz: Me Being, Being Me

Personal Story By Jason Mraz

Yesterday I visited a wellness center in an effort to stimulate my recovery from a nasty chest cold. Upon filling out the admission form, under occupation I wrote, BEING ME. I had never thought of it before and right away began to feel better.

Since hitting the sheets on Monday night with a painful cough – likely brought on from surfing in a broth of viruses after a storm – I spent a lot of time in bed, pondering life, grateful for the high’s and with whom I’ve shared them. Its in these times of weakness I wish I could gather a posse of ex-girlfriends to surround my bed and shower me with wellness – assuming their minds aren’t currently consumed with wishes of my unfortunate death. Of all the love I’ve known, I’m present to how just a hint of any of it can brighten my day. And so it does.

No matter when we crossed paths, your love is still very alive in me. Whether you were my babysitter, my school teacher, my couple’s skate partner, my prom date, my medicine woman, my co-collaborator, my cook, my thief, my lover, or my wife – I get that you are an incarnation of the one and only divine mother – the ultimate lover – and in knowing that I am in constant supply.

And while this current revolution IS indeed feminine, I am not excluding the men. For every playground runt, soccer captain, or high school knucklehead that gave me a hard time, there was the cry “I want love” and we shared it. Every man declares and achieves his own masculinity it seems, but not without mentoring and measuring up with other men to get there. We look out for each other – All sons of the same mother – and I am your brother.

I am but a leaf on the outer branches of a much larger organism, connected by an even larger root system cleverly expanding under ground. Because the roots are hidden, we are fooled into thinking we are separate. But the fact that there is a life force that breathes in and out of us all – a force that carries music, ideas, and love in and out of our hearts and minds – I am certain I am you and you I. Therefore, I ask you think in terms of wellness today for I’d much prefer to be singing. To heal me is to heal you, too.

And while the metaphysics freak me – it is possible that the best thing to come from being under the weather this week is that I now know how to identify my favorite film genre.

Thanks to NetFlix there is home for 80’s and 90’s era SciFi/Inspirational films to flourish. Movies like Cocoon, Batteries Not Included, Explorers, Phenomenon, K-PAX, A-I, Wall-E, and ET all make my heart sing as has been proven this week in bed with my cats. Perhaps it’s because the use of other worldly creatures and the escapism of space-based-cinema-story helps us to see more clearly and overcome our limiting human conditions. This is perhaps the case. But I also really like puppets.