wu wei

Funny how I blind myself
I never knew if I was sometimes played upon
Afraid to lose,
I'd tell myself what good you do
Convince myself

It's my life
Don't you forget
It's my life
It never ends

- Talk Talk "It's My Life", 1984

Intersections can be fascinating. I have found myself watching the flow of traffic moving in those four distinct directions, everyone intent on leaving this place and moving on to the next, recognizing that the destinations of some are remarkably similar to the recent location of several others, and noting that within all of that shuffle so many are really in the same place. In metaphors by-ways, highways, crossroads, and other means of point A to point B are used to signify one's present position in life. Here is never good enough.

Today I find an intriguing intersection of time. I see these quite often, but usually keep them to myself. I find significance in measuring and taking note of time, as I see it, whether or not there's anything tangible about it. I grew up listening to "Time in a Bottle" and watching Quantum Leap, so my concept of time has a wide birth. Only with our conception of time can we view synchronicity and supposed coincidence. We need such borders to see the overlap.

One month from today my play opens. For me that's crunch time. We are getting down to the wire. I see all of these dots bouncing about throughout my mind, and slowly each becomes connected, and together we are creating more and more viewable images. But there's so much more work to do. Last week the poster was completed. This is the first line of attack in any promotional campaign, and I think of the difficult trek it was to even get there. The original poster designer became revved up by the idea of working on the show, back in early June, but all subsequent communications lacked response. The second choice artist wasn't even known to me until after that struggle of wills and patience, but the end result assures me that she should have been first.

Today also marks ten years since the completion of my first feature length screenplay. I had dabbled in writing scripts for many years prior. I ran out of interest for many of them after about ten or fifteen pages. This was the first one that involved extensive research, revision, and revelation. This was my baby, and the one that got whipped the most by the Hollywood perspective. It was deemed many harsh things, all of which became badges of honor that I would ultimately wear happily. It was accused of being too rough, too raw, too edgy, too left of center, and maybe appropriately too long. I did have some cheerleaders and fans, who wanted to work with this ballsy novice, and a couple interested investors, but I had a really poor business execution given the faith I put in an enthusiastic, charismatic, but ultimately flaky partner who was intending to help me get the film made.

What did I know? I was still grappling to find my voice. Translating it from my mind to the page never quite came across how I wanted. About five years ago, I completely dismantled the material and started to develop the more comfortable novel version. It languishes with many other original bits and bauble, awaiting the intersection of time, interest, and inspiration.

This morning I had a brief Facebook chat with a good friend who I met at the height of the above script's fateful trip to the screen. He sold his first play, a Civil War musical that uses royalty free period music and is geared toward kids - his preferred audience. I updated him on the progress of the current play. I recounted the time when I was anti-theatre and could only see myself working in film. I viewed theatre as musically cheesy and dramatically boring. My theatre experiences were clearly narrow, but I also wonder if I might just be a really bad audience and far better suited for the other side of the stage.