Friday, December 14, 2018

Red carpets and bedroom offices

It's been seven weeks since the red carpet premiere screening of The Couch. Seven weeks and seven seconds. Seven weeks and seven lifetimes. Seven weeks and seven years. It seems so far away and then a moment later, I feel as if it just happened.

It was a lovely night. So many of my friends showed up. My family was there. People who've cheerleaded me on for over ten years now. For over forty years now. It really was a celebration. A celebration almost two years in the making. And a celebration that was over in the snap of a finger. It really was a lovely night. A lovely blur of a night.

As I sat there, in the pews of the church I've been a member of since I moved to California, amidst people who have loved me and encouraged me, I wasn't nervous. I thought I might be. I'd written this story, that was so much of me, so much of my life, and really none of it at all, and I was asking people to watch, to listen, to laugh, to cry, to experience a world I'd created. This was something I had lived with for so long it was almost odd that others had not experienced it until that very moment. And yet, they hadn't. I had lived with the story, and then the actors' portrayal, and the photos, and the memories, that to be there in that room was just a big exhale for me. A chance to say, this is it. This is the end of this journey. This is the result.

The first scene I ever directed,
as show on the big screen
That night, as I saw an image I directed on the big screen, in the darkened room, and then heard words I'd strung together while sitting in my bedroom wearing my pajamas, I was not nervous. But I was satisfied. This was the goal all along. This was the goal from the very beginning. From the first film school application. From the first day in the lecture hall at UCLA. From the first writer's group meeting in my living room. From the first of dozens of scripts written. From the first moment I thought, I can do that.

I know it takes hubris to say the world needs to hear my story, the world should hear my story. I know it takes a certain bit of self-importance. I won't deny that. I can't deny that. If I did, I'd never put my fingers on the keyboard or pick up a pen. I have things to say. I have stories to share. I have this world, so many worlds, inside of me and they have to come out. It's how I experience the real world. It's how I make sense of the real world. I write about it. And I want people to read what I've written just as I read what others have written and made and created.

The red carpet premiere was a celebration. It was a whirlwind. I took hundreds of pictures, both in front of and from behind the camera. I spent mere moments with people I wanted to talk to all night. I didn't eat any of the lovely food the caterers made. I rushed and rushed and wished I could have slowed everything down and spread it out over more hours, more days. But that's not how celebrations work. Because the peaks are usually tiny compared to the valleys.

And there are valleys. I always want to remind myself of that. And to share that with others. It's not all glossy, filtered photos spread across social media. It's having a terrible cold on the night of the premiere and somehow, I'm sure God was involved, not coughing even once for those few hours at the church. It's things not always going perfectly, and some people not making it even though they promised, and forgetting to take one single photo with someone who cheers you on loudly every single day.

It's the other days of the year when I'm sitting here, in my office, that is also my bedroom, and wondering what I should work on next. It's abandoning a beloved project because the news of real life is too intense to translate into fiction anymore. It's feeling behind on life because I haven't created another new finished script yet this year and it's the middle of December. It's knowing we haven't shot a single frame of our movie yet, and feeling like maybe we never will.

But those valleys are never so deep that I can't see out. And the way up is always right there. I think about what I have accomplished this year. About starting out in January on the set of a hit network show, spending three weeks learning from a wonderful director, who when I saw him again this fall, was even more kind and made me and my work feel important. I think about the table read where over a dozen actors I didn't know spent hours preparing for and then presenting my work to me. So that I could learn. And it was amazing. I think about the Film Independent classes I've taken, the MasterClasses I've listened to, the books I've read, and the work I've done behind the scenes (social media is a lot, y'all. A LOT.). I count up the hours I've spent with people I love, volunteering and socializing and worshiping and cheering and laughing and I realize how blessed I really am. I think about the movie I'm writing -- the new movie, and how it's all there in an outline and how I did that. And how I can already see the first twenty minutes and how they're twenty REALLY GOOD minutes and how I can't wait to sit in a dark room and watch this one. I think about how I'm alive. How I'm loved. How I'm happy. I think about the headaches from my blood thinner and how they remind me that the pulmonary embolism I had almost four years ago did not bury me in that valley. I think about how I get to go spend Christmas in Michigan.

And then I think about that hubris again. And I think maybe it's not such a bad thing. That by believing in myself I get to create stories that give people some joy, some entertainment, even just for an hour or two. I get to meet and work with all sorts of amazing storytellers and we get to put on a show and that on Tuesday, I will step into the first movie theater I ever saw a movie in and show more of my friends and family something I made, right up on that big screen.

I saw Speed in that theater. I saw Harry and the Hendersons in that theater. I saw Little Women in that theater. I saw movies in that theater with my sister, with my parents, with my grandparents. With people who will sit with my Tuesday night and people I know are watching from up above. I get to do that. That's a definite peak.

It hasn't all been red carpets this year. And even when it has been, there's always more to the story than what most of us see or hear about. More time is spent alone, in my bedroom in clothes I'm sometimes embarrassed to answer the door in, then dressed up and sitting on a stage talking about the craft. But that's how it's supposed to be. That's the best part of it all. If we didn't have valleys, we'd never realize there were peaks. Glorious, beautiful peaks that make the whole journey that much more beautiful.

No comments: