Posts in category "Daily Life"

let us have our tongues

It’s not that I don’t want to write about how things are slow­ly chang­ing, I just nev­er seem to have the chance. Nowadays, my pri­or­i­ties are sur­vival else­where, and the writ­ten word isn’t the out­let I need any­more.

Besides, every time I try to get a thought on a page, I get lost in the scope. My think­ing con­stant­ly goes fur­ther and fur­ther, as my under­stand­ing of the world moves beyond the things that affect only me. It’s made me a more patient, com­pas­sion­ate, and empa­thet­ic per­son. But by the time I fig­ure some­thing out, the feel­ing is gone, and words are no longer rel­e­vant.

slider

I’ve been try­ing to leave my cam­era at home too, a way of forc­ing myself to savour each expe­ri­ence. It’s a del­i­cate bal­ance between that and my ever-present need to doc­u­ment every­thing. I’m dis­cov­er­ing that mem­o­ries aren’t as vivid as pho­tographs, but they live longer in the implic­it part of the mind, and both are food to an intro­vert nonethe­less.

Days with­out a way to cap­ture the world around me are nev­er easy. I want to take pic­tures of sun­light and sum­mer and sweat and sex, but life has­n’t been so much about events as the reg­u­lar­i­ty. The moments I share every day with the peo­ple I need, or the time between when I’m recharg­ing and heal­ing. The things worth appre­ci­at­ing are more fre­quent, but all the more fleet­ing too.

not today

Summer has been over­cast, if not rainy. It’s great. I can keep every win­dow open, and the whole day feels like it’s a dew-soaked morn­ing on the verge of a sun­rise. It’s enough to make me believe that the real sum­mer is nev­er com­ing.

girl playing cello

These days I’m still recov­er­ing, still learn­ing to treat myself with com­pas­sion. Sometimes it’s a blur­ry line between that and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. I don’t know how I feel about parts of my life, parts I nev­er ques­tioned before, and it’s a strange uncer­tain­ty to be car­ry­ing.

That means I don’t know how to act around most peo­ple, some­thing I haven’t had trou­ble with since I was a kid. I’ve been avoid­ing most social con­tact, while spend­ing time with the few peo­ple who know me well enough to hurt me. Sometimes it’s like walk­ing on a tightrope, wait­ing to fall off. Everything is an exer­cise in vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Luckily, they’re the right peo­ple to help me through as well, the right peo­ple to put my trust into. This is how I learn to love again.

pugs

I’m learn­ing to be self­ish too, espe­cial­ly at a time like this. I’ve real­ized how impor­tant it is to be oblig­ed to myself, instead of con­stant­ly putting aside my feel­ings for the sake of oth­ers. That means under­stand­ing what I need out of my rela­tion­ships, instead of try­ing to make them what I thought they should be. Sometimes that also means mak­ing sure I spend enough time alone.

this must be the place

Somewhere, I have notes on fam­i­ly and names, the infamy of Cuban fare, being alone togeth­er, break­ing the seal, pass­ing Damian on the way to Havana, salty hair from salty air, rum and brown, thread­ed fin­gers, not enough euchre, every life-guard try­ing to sell me lob­ster meals, pat­terns on palms, plus 20 min­utes Cuba time, find­ing out how deep my scars run, blush­ing through my sun­burn, sand every­where and in every­thing.

beach

Continue read­ing “this must be the place”…

Allison + Eric — Wedding Day

Allie and Eric had a pic­turesque wed­ding at South Pond, a quant lit­tle farm in Bethany Hills. Their day was filled with delight­ful details, like car­riage rides to the cer­e­mo­ny, dove releas­es, and paper lanterns. It all made for a wed­ding film that nev­er los­es it’s momen­tum. Even though I’ve been work­ing with a com­pos­er to score my most recent films, I still take spe­cial requests from cou­ples who want me to use songs that have per­son­al mean­ing to them, and in this case it was Such Great Heights by The Postal Service.

I cut my teeth on fil­mog­ra­phy and dis­cov­ered my per­son­al style when spend­ing time on Eric and Mark’s farm in Bancroft. Back then, I had a cheap cam­corder1 but need­ed a sub­ject, they had the snow­board­ing skills but need­ed a doc­u­men­tar­i­an. That’s how I gained cru­cial expe­ri­ence with edit­ing, com­pos­ing, and grad­ing, though it would be years before I got a real cam­era and final­ly under­stood aper­ture, shut­ter speed, and ISO as well. Filming Eric get­ting mar­ried was like com­ing around full-cir­cle, where I could apply all the things I’ve learned through the years since those week­ends spent in the coun­try with his fam­i­ly and friends.

  1. A Hitachi DVD-RAM cam­corder, which only took ter­ri­bly com­pressed video in some pro­pri­etary for­mat. []

in between

I haven’t had much to say, which is always a strange state to be in. Probably due to the fact that I’m mak­ing a con­scious effort to lis­ten more and speak less. You begin to won­der about the impor­tance of your thoughts, and what real­ly needs to be said.

It feels like I’m between…things. I’ve recent­ly fin­ished off a few projects, so I’m tak­ing a break before I start anoth­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty binge. Me-time has most­ly involved win­ning drafts and cash­ing in wagers. Lisa’s off to Hawaii for her hon­ey­moon so it’ll be a month before I see her again, but that gives me a much-need­ed chance to spend time with the friends who aren’t part of my reg­u­lar sched­ule.

cats by the door

The cats are into their spring cycles, shed­ding like mad, and sleep­ing by the door dur­ing the day. I’m tempt­ed to cut my hair short again in antic­i­pa­tion of the heat, but I’m hav­ing too much fun grow­ing it out right now. I’ve decid­ed to embrace the length cause I know I’ll get sick of it even­tu­al­ly and cut of it off, like any oth­er cycle of growth and loss, love and hate.