2018 in 9 photos

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1) from trip to yellowstone in october where we saw a lot of great stuff and I tried finally taking my camera off automatic and experimented with shutter speed and exposures. noteworthy b/c i was in throes of crowdfunding and there was some interior darkness starting to assemble that the majesty of the landscape was helpful in neutralizing. also: amazing place and how had we never been there before? already planning our return.

2) from trip to Humboldt County, CA where in addition to running Avenue of the Giants with friends we took the kids to Patrick's Point and walked them out to Wedding Rock where we'd been married 18 years previous. hall of mirrors that we will return to this May to run the same half-marathon

3) a still from Microaggressions, the 6 part webseries I wrote, funded (thanks RACC), and made this fall. currently in post production. was excellent to be back on set, was excellent to see it come alive thanks to the great cast/crew. was also excellent to work in diff format (ie webseries) and most especially to have such a quick turnaround time from conception to wrapping. very eager to share this. stay tuned. 

4) from our first full night alone in 7 years. we had drinks, saw Free Solo (A+) , heard some live music (Mel Brown Trio, A+), played pinball, slept in (ie past 6 a), read the sunday ny times in bed. It was a long overdue restorative and much too quick.

5) from camping trip to Jesse Honeyman State Park. a reminder to camp more and to turn off my phone and live more presently (though that sounds a little goofy and simplistic compared to the profundity of the sensation). also a reminder to clean my lens more.

6) in april got home to empty house and found the flex piping under upstairs sink split and for an hour or so 50K gallons of water were pouring through the house. repercussions still being felt/managed but suffice to say it was disruption and introduced imbalance that persists but one that may in the end be useful in terms of resetting things in a better place. 

7) from trip to Ecola State Park in June w/ family and mother in law wherein I was reminded to not try to control everything. (read: I desperately did not want to go on this trip but it turned out to be really fun)

8) after years of resistance to ever crowdfunding again I pulled trigger to raise some $ for Sister/Brother, in large part b/c having little success via other channels and this movie isn't gonna make itself. I wrote this positive affirmation at start of campaign and put it in my wallet and forgot about it. It's notable b/c to experience this go round of crowdfunding was to enter a dark and rocky place with little hope of positive end result. but by the end it worked out. (note: that sounds more quaint than the experience was, b/c the experience was horrible).

9) one hazard of prepping/making webseries and then 4 days later launching month-long crowdfunding for feature and in the middle of all that going on trip to yellowstone was that I stopped running for a couple months. This fact - in combo with all the bottomless negative sensations that crowdfunding activated - sent me into a tailspin of deep darkness. In November I made a deal with myself to run everyday for 1 to 4 miles. It was not sudden or automatic but this continued action helped me slowly return and gain a modicum of control over the chaos. this pic from Springwater Corridor in early december pretty much sums up the feeling.

Rejection & Renewal

today is the 22 yr anniversary of the death of my son's namesake. he was driving back from his mother's funeral in Portland and fell asleep at the wheel 10 min from his house in McKinleyville, CA. (Margaret and I started dating shortly afterward and said if made it thru the hazards of being in a relationship in college and one day got married and one day had children, the boy would be named after him.) The last thing he said to me, in the foyer to our classroom on the 2nd floor of the Theater Arts Building, in a rush to get to Portland, the news of his mother's death fresh on his face was I'll be okay.

I got rejected for a job I wanted. granted still a day job (ie not filmmaking) but one that at least would intersect w/ my creative training and background. The sting was primarily ego-based but enough to mostly ruin the weekend. Late Sunday I started to think that maybe it was a gift, this not getting the thing I wanted, this transformative opportunity, this second chance to rise from the ashes and chart a course forward. That it was the pursuit of the job that was more important than the job itself (esp as relates to how I value my own self and voice).

It hasn't been confirmed but a rejection from a very selective film program I wanted desperately to attend is imminent. Getting in would have been a game-changer for my next movie Sister/Brother (which starts shooting this Spring).  When I got picked for the second round back in August, I had a few weeks to get the screenplay in shape and I did a line by line rehaul. In a sense that was the gift of advancing, not the perceived end goal. I am making the movie regardless.

Thursday I went to see the Pixies. In that weird sort of bookending that only music can seemingly do recalled seeing them 28 years earlier in Atlanta at the Roxy on October 15, 1989. Standing here in the recent present watching them made me think of the small tiny person I was then, a senior in high school, the broad deficiencies and wants that consumed me then. How I wish the me of now could go back in time, telling him not to put focus on such meaningless things. That made me think of the broad deficits and wants that consume me now. Is someone coming from 28 years in the future to tell me something similar? something like this:

Light can conceal as much as shadow can reveal. Things break one way, things break another. You'll be okay.

Today on my lunch break I ran up past the Duniway Park Lilac Garden, up Terwillger Blvd, on the path that circles the hospital where I had 2 brain surgeries, where my son had a fetal MRI when he was in utero to help them get a better look at the mass in his chest that was changing shape week to week, when we didn't know if he would live or die before he got to us, or shortly thereafter. The sun was out and the sky was blue. It was crisp and clear. My app told me when I finished the run but something inside me told me to keep going.

MM on Residency - end/return

really flubbed the landing there. meant to do a real-time day by day account of what it was like with aims to sort of document the price of art and love and marriage where both parties are pursuing something creative and there is taxation w/ in. I'll just say that there were a couple big low points (the macaroni night, Thurs b/f MM came home) but I weathered, we weathered. I am so proud of MM and cannot wait to see what kinds of fruit this trip bore her. Also, I'll get her back when I shoot my next movie Sister/Brother in the spring or summer of 2018