It's late - well, late for me these days.
It's around 2:30 Am on a school night. Being middle aged, my schedule is pretty much non-negotiable at this point in my career. Usually, I would have been in bed a long time ago, either asleep (& drooling with a book on my chest and the light on while cloaked deep in the dreams of ignorance,) or tossing, turning, and most probably being wide awake at 4:00 AM worrying about the things I can control or cannot control.
I've been really close to writing something about this for a long while now. However, mitigating circumstance including (but not limited to) the job, the life, and what seems to be my many amazing debacles might quickly start outweighing any past successes; both personally and professionally. All of which have been contributing to a rather healthy case of writers block for the past bunch of months.
So you know, it's a perfect evening coming up to the end of summer. My windows are open, and there is no traffic noise, no wind, no nothing, just a calm, gentle cool breeze almost imperceptibility moving my blinds back & forth, letting me know it's there and cooling me with the clean ocean air.
I just came back from a late night walk up & down Robson Street, and while reaching for a cigarette, I found my lighter was out of gas. There were two Japanese guys smoking cigarettes walking towards me and I stopped and asked them for a light. Right then it took me back to Milan, 2000. I was there for a film market, and the city was foggy, polluted, and exotic as it always is. The two guys I stopped tonight were smoking Marlboro's, and that smell triggered everything. Smoking American cigarettes, at the top of my game, hanging out with German Financiers, living the big life, with a pile of hopes, dreams, and most of all having the luxury of time to make them happen in front of me. I was in my early 30's then, and the world was indeed my oyster.
I remember when I was a kid. My parents used to make me read, write, then read some more. One of my most favorite books was "Where The Wild Things Are". I read it voraciously. I drew pictures of the creatures. The book scared me sometimes. The book took me away to where all things were possible, and it made me realize that there were dreams out there that I'd fulfill.
I've been waiting all my life to see this movie. The funny thing is, that after all this time, monitoring this somewhat - troubled film as it went through production, re-shoots, and finally watching both trailers, part of me kind of doesn't want to see it yet. Not in the way that things are going now, where dreams seem a little more scary, hope seems a little more fragmented, and life is a little more tough that I had bargained for.
OK. Who am I kidding? I can't wait to see it!
But part of me also wishes I had a couple of my own kids to take with me - so I could take a Sunday afternoon, load them up with junk food, watch their wide open eyes, almost smell the wood burning as they processed what they were viewing onscreen, and ultimately, blow their puny, adolescent minds with monsters, hopes, dreams, a lesson about how to live a life... and later it would be my job to try and give them good answers to the questions that would surely follow.
But for now? Back to the sleeplessness.
It's around 2:30 Am on a school night. Being middle aged, my schedule is pretty much non-negotiable at this point in my career. Usually, I would have been in bed a long time ago, either asleep (& drooling with a book on my chest and the light on while cloaked deep in the dreams of ignorance,) or tossing, turning, and most probably being wide awake at 4:00 AM worrying about the things I can control or cannot control.
I've been really close to writing something about this for a long while now. However, mitigating circumstance including (but not limited to) the job, the life, and what seems to be my many amazing debacles might quickly start outweighing any past successes; both personally and professionally. All of which have been contributing to a rather healthy case of writers block for the past bunch of months.
So you know, it's a perfect evening coming up to the end of summer. My windows are open, and there is no traffic noise, no wind, no nothing, just a calm, gentle cool breeze almost imperceptibility moving my blinds back & forth, letting me know it's there and cooling me with the clean ocean air.
I just came back from a late night walk up & down Robson Street, and while reaching for a cigarette, I found my lighter was out of gas. There were two Japanese guys smoking cigarettes walking towards me and I stopped and asked them for a light. Right then it took me back to Milan, 2000. I was there for a film market, and the city was foggy, polluted, and exotic as it always is. The two guys I stopped tonight were smoking Marlboro's, and that smell triggered everything. Smoking American cigarettes, at the top of my game, hanging out with German Financiers, living the big life, with a pile of hopes, dreams, and most of all having the luxury of time to make them happen in front of me. I was in my early 30's then, and the world was indeed my oyster.
I remember when I was a kid. My parents used to make me read, write, then read some more. One of my most favorite books was "Where The Wild Things Are". I read it voraciously. I drew pictures of the creatures. The book scared me sometimes. The book took me away to where all things were possible, and it made me realize that there were dreams out there that I'd fulfill.
I've been waiting all my life to see this movie. The funny thing is, that after all this time, monitoring this somewhat - troubled film as it went through production, re-shoots, and finally watching both trailers, part of me kind of doesn't want to see it yet. Not in the way that things are going now, where dreams seem a little more scary, hope seems a little more fragmented, and life is a little more tough that I had bargained for.
OK. Who am I kidding? I can't wait to see it!
But part of me also wishes I had a couple of my own kids to take with me - so I could take a Sunday afternoon, load them up with junk food, watch their wide open eyes, almost smell the wood burning as they processed what they were viewing onscreen, and ultimately, blow their puny, adolescent minds with monsters, hopes, dreams, a lesson about how to live a life... and later it would be my job to try and give them good answers to the questions that would surely follow.
But for now? Back to the sleeplessness.
