There's two days left in 2010… two days left in what has been quite a strange decade, the first of the millennium. A few days prior, before the city was cast in a giant veil of white snow there was an end of a very long journey for myself on Christmas this year. Four years, probably longer in some ways.
I got to sit and watch my first feature "…Around", a valentine to NYC--and more and more to those involved in making it, play on PBS… to all New York City. It was also perhaps the first time I felt closure and could look back, as if closing the last page of a giant scrapbook, and truly enjoy the experience. During the last four years the "fight" always overtook the triumphs and even the heartbreaks of making the film and trying to "get it out". You see, every accomplishment became muddled in achieving the next goal, every screening and review became footstools to get the next pull quote. I never got to taste it or enjoy it, no matter how great or how hard, quite like I did that night. The random messages and emails I got, some from strangers and others from those who've been strangers too long, filled me with a greater sense of understanding of the whole experience and what it's meant to me, what's it meant to others. "…Around" took on a life of it's own long before I shot one piece of footage, and like the roots of a giant oak tree, a foothold in my very soul, it sprang up in new and wondrous ways over the last few years. I got to see the beautiful and unique family it built for me, the relationships formed and those I sacrificed to continue on the path. I never gave up on it, even times I said I did or the entire universe was giving me many a message to do so.
And now it's given me a greater gift in the opportunity to do it one more time, to tell a new story and begin a new journey.
After it's own unique journey and fight, financing has been secured for "Things I Don't Understand" to shoot in a few months. It won't be without it's own set of circumstance and sacrifices but the first steps to the next few years of my life have begun. Some of these sacrifices I know and know well, others have yet to reveal themselves, but I have a clean slate and a new fight... The demons of the past have been shaken or tucked away to where they need to be, the dragon has not been slayed but subdued.
I'm excited. I'm ready. I'm thankful. I'm forever grateful to those I've gotten to meet and work with on "…Around", for those I get to bring back again for "Things" and the new faces this time. I'm committed to do the thing that I love, that comes so utterly natural…
I'm ready to move on and tell a new story.
"…Around" and those that shared the experience, however big and small, will always have a place inside me. I'll re-open the scrapbook from time to time because, lets face it, there's none like your "first time". But I'm also ready for now to put the scrapbook away, to clear the air… to let go of the fight… and start again.
Merry Christmas to all… an the start of a great and prosperous New Year!
"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning" - TS Elliot
