Dear Claire,
Well, my dear Claire, your father is en route to Los Angeles to attend an area film festival, just the second screening of the feature we made over the summer of your belly-growth. It’s exciting to say you’re going to LA, no question. It’s a dream for me, albeit, I’m like a fossil so it doesn’t seem as sexy as it would if I were “just going down with a backpack and sleeping on sofas, gonna crack Hollywood.” I’m going for a week with a suitcase that has wheels and a handle, staying for a week with expenses paid, and flying home. I’m like a business trip Dad but I get to hear t-shirts and fancy running shoes everywhere.
By now you know me enough to be the guy who’s always smiling at you like an idiot, I just can’t help myself. But I also realize I’m kind of like this out in public too. No, I don’t coochi-coo to strangers but I do tend to have a giant smile on my face everywhere I go (yes, for sure, minus behind the wheel). Anyway, why would a guy like me be smiling all over the place? Here’s some sad facts:
- I have no savings, none, nothing, seriously zero, NO money in some future life account, or some future Uni account for you
- I have massive crippling debt. I made a feature film on line’s of credit, maxed out my credit cards at 19.5% interest, and borrowed money form family to cover some months of not working
- have not job, no income. I’m serious. I’m a full-fledge self “employed” person. As I like to say to my friends, “we’re either destined for big things or we’re set up to fail in a blaze of glory.
All of this began as a decision to get out of multimedia production and focus on being a filmmaker. Right now I can assure you that multimedia work pays a LOT more, and a lot more often. Being a filmmaker, and by that I mean a writer or director, you’re pretty much an inventor. You walk around shucking your latest invention for investors and commitments. It’s kind of insane to wake up one day and just go for it like this, say to yourself, “yep, I’m gonna invent things and people will get on board and this is gonna work out.” And we’re at the first stage of that right now, the “wow, this is nuts” stage where we have, as mentioned above, zero in the money bags. The other day we discovered a small leak in our roof and our response to it was “it’s not that bad, we’ll catch it next spring.” Which was the same response when the car dealership dropped a $1600 quote on repairing the back shocks. “Yeah, next spring we’ll catch this.” We’re completely unhinged.
But here’s the weird part, I don’t think I have any other choice in the matter. This is a bit of a story, but I got what I like to call instant Karma. I’m not a next life Karma person, I’m an absolutely this life Karma person. A story: about 6 years ago I was driving from Toronto to Ottawa. I stopped off halfway to fill up the tank at a gas station (are they even going to have these when you’re 30?). At this time I had a really fancy watch, it was nice, expensive, but I hated wearing it when I drove, so I always took it off and put it in my pocket. So, at the gas station I walk up to pay for everything. I gotta find a penny or two to make the correct change, and I take my watch off and place it on the candy bar rack by the cash. I notice that the cashier is all confused on giving me the proper change, and it turns out I’m getting an extra five bucks from his confusion. I keep my mouth shut, drop the change and extra five into my pocket and hit the road. I was kind of torn, the cashier guy seemed like a nice guy, but I figured I was taking five from the company, and this somehow alleviated my guilt of not saying anything. It’s not until I get home that I realize I don’t have my fancy watch with me, that I left it on top of this cashier’s candy bar stack. Nice. I made five bucks in “sticking it to the man”, and really, doing the wrong thing, and wound up losing the nicest watch I’ve ever had. Now as a pointed reminder I wear and will only wear watches that cost about $30 bucks.
Why this story? Well, as far as I see it, with this instant Karma thing going on, I think I’ve pretty much used up all the re-incarnation lives left to live. This life seems like the last. Anything that goes in now is coming out now too. I don’t exactly get away with anything in the hopes of maybe passing it along to the next life. It’s all or nothing. And with that, while I was working multimedia jobs I developed a rather sour attitude towards many things, including other people’s success. I was a malcontent. And it was a drag to not be doing what I need to be doing in this life. So, making the with has, well, made me happy. Completely and utterly broke, for sure, it feels like I’m back in first year university, and believe me this is a knock on the ol’ pride, but I figure it’ worth it if it means I can have a smile on my face around you.
There is another reason I tend to smile a lot, kind of like the village idiot: we are really really lucky. Every night we go to sleep and the roof doesn’t cave in. Every night as we sleep our bodies work. Every day we get running water and some food in our bellies. Every day the sun doesn’t explode or burn out, it just keeps going and going, giving life to everything. You know, scientists have gone in every direction into outer space, into the furthest regions, and so far, in billions and billions of light years in any direction there is NO where else to have life as we know except on this planet, Mother Earth. Nothing, in any direction. We’re in the middle of outer space, in the middle of God knows where, and this crazy little ball works, it has life on it, everyday for my entire life, it’s worked. It worked for my entire life line on both my parents side, on your mothers life lines, and we hope that it will for you – so far, so good (albeit we got some habits we gotta change and you guys are getting hose bagged for sure.) The point is, it’s really hard for me to get this outta my head, that for the most part, life is working. Things are alive and things are working. Has a generation of human beings ever been so lucky?
Anyway, you out these two things together and your father has either become the village idiot or a genuinely happy and exciting human being. I can’t help it. I’m excited about things. I’m anxious to get as most out of this as I can while I’m here. And I see that in you too, when you fight and fight and fight the sleep that you need – too many things to see still, sounds to hear, things to put in your mouth. I get it. I really do. We’re desperate to be alive.
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