To Oakland

Leaving the country is obviously a complicated thing. For this trip it was mostly emotionally complicated. Although three days delayed, it turned out that we hit the road at the exact perfect time. Of course.

As it also turns out I would also spend the next two days driving alone, in silence. I’ve now located the face plate to my stereo but it’s an amazing thing that I lost it in the first place. The silence left me alone with my thoughts.

I continually observed myself cycling through the hate, hurt and anger towards this person I blame for my woes. All of the expressions of this ugliness that I could think of would have done more harm to me than to them.

Suddenly, just before the California border, I started writing it into my script. It has become a pivotal part of the film and opened my eyes to the true strength of the entire story. After a few hours of refining things in my head as I drove, the tears stopped. The anger stopped. Maybe the hatred stopped but I’ve thought that before so the jury is still out on that one.

These feelings are part of the artist’s burden. Pain, sadness, anger, and love all feed our expressive selves. Not always, of course, but sometimes, in my observation, art is the way to release them. I was afraid that this shuddering sadness I had been carrying would dilute the opportunities ahead of me and cloud the instinct that I rely on so much as a filmmaker.

I arrived in Oakland with exactly enough time to settle in. Arriving where I am supposed to be has a certain certainty. I can gradually feel my feet again on the ground, and the excitement of what’s to come overflows from my fingertips.

Great minds talk about not identifying with emotions but rather letting them flow through you. Not resenting them but accepting them in order to move beyond them. I’m starting to feel that accepting them is the best way to truly let them go and eliminate their remnants. The creative force possibly exists for that purpose.

I hope this understanding can stick around, and perhaps even evolve further.

So my first day in Oakland created this