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.

little heart, go slow

Spring offi­cial­ly begins when I can leave the win­dows in my house open all day. This only lasts about a week though, and is also around the time I have to remem­ber to turn the stereo down at red lights and res­i­den­tial areas, a small price to pay for the sim­ple plea­sure of wak­ing up with a breeze on my face.

It’s been more than a year since I’ve been on a sched­ule. Even the num­ber of meals I have in a day has start­ed to vary. Goals and dead­lines are what help me keep pace. I know this can’t last for­ev­er, so I’m tak­ing advan­tage of the time to be free and explore and estab­lish the bonds I’ll need for the next stage of my life.

cherry tomato cheers

The strug­gle now is about bal­ance, most­ly between nour­ish­ing myself and my rela­tion­ships, as there’s rarely enough time for both late­ly. Thankfully, spring is teach­ing me patience too. I’ve stopped try­ing to con­trol every­thing, and I’m let­ting go of the ten­den­cy to want things be to be dif­fer­ent from how they are right now.

The old me would have been scared to so unre­served­ly place myself in the hands fate. Now I know I’ll be okay if I can find hap­pi­ness in how­ev­er things are at any moment.

Protected: leaf on a stream

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sprung

I’m rid­ing on so much momen­tum it feels like I’ll nev­er come to a stop. This is a dras­tic change from only a short while ago, and I can attribute it most­ly to the chances I’ve had to apply the lessons I’ve learned. Being able to prove to myself that I still have things to dis­cov­er, that I’m still refin­ing myself as a per­son, has left me feel­ing con­fi­dent and hum­ble late­ly.

420 protest on Parliament Hill

April 20th is the one day I wish I owned a BeaverTails stand. Protesting does­n’t get any more peace­ful than this.

Making peace with myself used to be a strug­gle. Now that I’m actu­al­ly hap­py with who I am, I real­ize how low a bar that used to be. I’ve been through stretch­es like this before though and they’ve nev­er last­ed, so I’m still approach­ing it all with cau­tious opti­mism. At least now I’m wise enough to know that hap­pi­ness is some­thing that needs to be worked at con­sis­tent­ly, in the lit­tle ways, and I’m strong enough to keep it going.

Jon-Kabat Zinn has been help­ing me on this path too. I’ve been lis­ten­ing to a series of his mind­ful med­i­ta­tion exer­cis­es, and I car­ry a sense of calm through the day when­ev­er I hear his voice. Every now and then he offers gen­tle advice on doing this kind of work, like how impor­tant it is to give your­self per­mis­sion to feel what­ev­er it is you’re feel­ing, and I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing that so much of it has rel­e­vance in oth­er parts of my life.