2019 in 10 pictures
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1. arch cape, oregon April 2019. celebration for my parents 50th anniversary. my sis surprised them and rented out a house - 2 doors down from where we were all staying - where a chef, sommelier, and pastry chef awaited them (and incidentally where I made The Black Sea 7 years ago). This pic is from that house.
2. yosemite np, july 2019. no words
3. brunch, august 2019. as incentive for crowdfunding campaign for my next feature film, I was able to have my friend Heather E of 30 + years come out for a brunch with notable Portland writers: Lidia Yuknavitch, Margaret Malone, Cheryl Strayed, Rene Denfeld. Chef Rachel Arenas did the cooking. It was so joyous to just be present for the conversations that ensued.
4. humboldt co may 2019. returned for the 2nd consecutive yr to run the avenue of the giants half-marathon. (however got sick and did the 10K instead) it.is always a hall of mirrors returning here, past and present intersecting with subfloors and trapdoors of my aspirations, prior relationships, hopes and dreams, etc. It was on this trip that our co-host S and M learned that despite knowing one another for many years that they both went to high school together briefly.
5. minneapolis june 2019. my maternal aunts and uncles, 8 total, assembled for my uncle Michael’s 80th. there were lots of remembrances and musings on space/time and familial joy and an abundance of board games.
6. sequoia np, august 2019. we watched the stars
7. maui, december 2019 many lessons and joys here, primary among them the simple/complicated act of turning our phones off entirely for 6 days.
8. southern california october 2019 service for my father-in-law, who lived to 93 and who was always kind, warm and usually funny. There is a low dull ache in the space he used to inhabit but I’ve been trying to fill it with the joy his memory provides.
9. central CA july 2019. margaret malone had a hell of a year. lots of professional inroads (including but not limited to quitting her day job, teaching writing full time and approaching the finish line (!) on a couple projects) and the exact inverse sensation on the personal front (including but not limited to shattering her arm on the ice in wichita KS moments prior to driving to the airport, running point on some omfg plumbing fiascos at home and the gut punch of profound loss). I am biased but know this: if you are fortunate enough to intersect with her in this lifetime be it through her writing or in the flesh you will be all the better for it.
10. nyc october 2019 went to support my webseries MICROAGGRESSIONS, which played at nyc webfest. this was an epic trip on professional and personal corridors, intersecting w/ my high school days, my film school days, my next feature film, and beyond. I cannot be more explicit at present but suffice to say that this trip was a giant rock thrown into a quiet pond and months later there are still ripples undulating outward that do not appear to be slowing down.
persistence
F wanted to climb a bigger wall. After conquering everything in the kids’ area she and I walked into the main area with N, her brother, and eventually found a straight-forward enough option, albeit about 10 feet straight up. N busied himself on a nearby structure so I stayed with F as she tried the wall and struggled. Up close it was trickier than it looked from far away and a more sophisticated enterprise than what she had attempted previously. She tried again and couldn’t do it. Then again. As a driven 5 year old, her emotions came into play with each passing attempt, frustration rising. She watched a boy about her size do it and her resolve came back. She tried again and didn’t make it, getting no further than before, only about 1/3 of the way up. The successive failures were starting to weigh on her so the three of us went back to the kids’ area. I watched them both do the kid walls again for awhile.
Eventually it was time to leave - we had lunch and a movie to get to later - but N wanted to go back to main area for one last wall. F agreed to come with me to watch him, but she was slightly unsettled about returning to the room, feeling an internal pressure to try the wall again. I explained that she didn’t have to. But moments later I stood with her, watching as she made several new attempts but each time got stuck about 1/3 of the way up, running out of handholds and lacking the wingspan to reach the spots she needed to ascend, and needing me to help her down again. She was extremely frustrated . “We can just go you know” I said. “You don’t need to do this.” Witnessing her continued discontent part of me really hoped she would just throw in the towel. But she shook her head, determined to continue. And the other part of me said “Okay”.
She sat with me on the floor, looking up at the heretofore unscalable surface. Looking from this perspective we were able to isolate the hand and foot moves she’d need to make, an ascending row of 4 small pink hand holds on her right side and some bigger ones on her left. After a few minutes, she wanted to try again. With a mix of reluctance and resolve, she put her hand on the first handhold and shakily pulled herself to the next. I was behind her, bracing her back again on the way up, but this time was different: She moved with a certainty, the path seemingly illuminating itself in front of her. Her confidence manifested as she ascended, each passing moment solidifying the empirical knowledge that she could do it. Suddenly, she was near the top. I worried for a second because she was out of my control and a slip - or worse frozen panic - would not be good. But F had already crossed the threshold; already neutralized the thing that had dogged her. She pulled herself over the top without ceremony and walked down the stairs to exit at the other end. I felt a profound swell of parental pride having watched the whole process unfold. I gave her a hug and a high five and said “Let’s go have lunch”. She looked at me and said. “No, I’m going again” with complete lack of fear and a confidence that belied everything it took to get her to this spot. It was as if she was now a different person, having defeated the thing that seemed impossible moments prior. She climbed the wall several more times entirely on her own, no need for an adult to brace or stand near.
Later she followed N to an adjacent wall, clearly designed for more experienced climbers, and scaled it along side him with no hesitation. They were both at the top now and I was at the bottom looking up at them.
N leaned over the edge and called down for me to come up. I felt a stir of panic in my belly knowing what was coming.
“I’ll go to the stairs and meet you” I said.
“No, climb up!” he said in his most persistent 8 year old register.
“I’ll go up the staircase and meet you at the top” I said.
“No, climb up!” he said.
“No way” I replied. I’m not climbing up that thing. We’re just here for the kids to get some exercise and to kill time before lunch and Frozen II - we’re not here for me.
“Come on, climb up”
“No”
“Dad, do it!”
No.
“Dad, come on”
No way.
“Dad, come on!”
Just then F leaned over and waved at me to come up. Their two heads were now looking down at me, urging me to do what they had just done.
With a mix of reluctance and resolve, I put my hand on the first handhold and shakily pulled myself to the next and - F’s strength and confidence bracing me at each moment - pulled myself up.
“Okay” I said.
november motion
path
71 days until we shoot and I can feel glacial, subterranean things moving around to make space for other things. was home sick monday and cleaned my office, which sounds like the most anodyne non-filmic undertaking possible but in fact it was the most directly related activity to making Sister/Brother that I’ve done of late (minus doing 2 full schedules and script breakdowns and rewriting screenplay that is). Making space by subtracting everything that isn’t necessary. (This has external and internal components of course.) There has been such liberation in stepping into the limitations of this project b/c it means I am turning off the aspirational (read: whining) interior part of me, which doesn’t take action b/c it’s always waiting, reliant on outside forces. This instead is action by virtue of ownership. I don’t have the luxury of aspiration and so certain doors click shut with regard to casting, locations, shooting ratios and so forth. This is the hand you’re dealt, move forward. More to come.
film and death
found this on twitter, attributed to Herzog but can’t confirm. regardless, it needs to be implanted in my brain, tattooed on my eyelids, put in my daily coffee, baked into breads and nut-loafs, muddled into cocktails, breathed in and out on repeat ad nauseum ad infinitum.
it arose last night over a pre pre production meeting w/ Sister/Brother co-producer and cinematographer Scott Ballard (interviewed on previous post) at the Lutz Tavern. topics covered: guerilla feature-making vs non-guerilla short film making, importance of casting, winter v spring, Carnal Knowledge, The Celebration, super 8 v super 16 v hd, the long endless hustle of this ride, skeleton crew vs appropriate crew, camera mount v camera car v neither, a standing still v death on a rock, making the movie for career v making the movie b/c it’s the right movie to make, and so on.
view from Lutz Tavern