???

The title sets the tone, but today I don’t know what my title is, I just know that I want to write. I spoke with my Mom this morning, she sounded a little better than she has in a few weeks. Morton’s death and her general depression have made her pretty much immobile. She started talking about writing a book again. I hope she does, she has started some version of a book many times. I just want her to get in to something, and writing, as I have been grateful to find, has helped me more than I ever thought it would. I come here when I have no where else to go, when I don’t know where I am, lost, overwhelmed, sad, anxious, and some times I can sort things out, that I couldn’t have through a phone call with a friend. I hope she makes her book, or at least finds some love in writing, that it could become her place to go when she feels lost.

So many changes ahead. I gave my notice on my apartment this past weekend. I’ll be leaving September 1st. I’m going to get rid of my phone. I have held on to the same phone number for 11 years, I chose it apart from the others the phone company gave me, because the last 4 digits were the amount, plus a dollar of the first big chunk of money I had raised for a project. As of September 1st I can be reached through e-mail and then possibly a cell phone, not sure yet. I like the idea of unloading old things, getting rid of my phone number, and this place that I’ve never been really happy in. It has been a home for me for the last 3 and half years. It has been a productive place, a place of isolation, a place where I started to write, where I fumbled through learning how to edit films, wrote papers, watched too many youtube videos and learned to like myself better. I am ready to leave.

I laid in bed the other day telling myself that I need to let go, let go of this place, let go of everyone I hang on to, let it all go, and I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I don’t want to hang on to people anymore, afraid that I’ll be left alone, I am alone. I cringe at the thought of needing and wanting somebody else so much that I dissappear. I’ve been there most of my life, and always trying to be seen. I am alone, and my home is inside me, and I am filled with memories of every tone, smell, and colour that a memory can have. My memories are filled with people that let me go, and that I let go of, of people that have harmed me and that I have harmed, people who cared about me and that I cared about, people I have worked for and with, my memories are filled with images that have made me sick and moved me to tears and laughter. It is all inside me, and in that way I’m never alone.

I applied for an internship in New York. I should find out next week if I’m going. I don’t feel attached either way. I just know that in September things will be different.

Jealousy

It’s happening. documentary exposure jealousy. Early in the term last year. I sat with Michelle, one of my teachers and she said something that got well hammered into my head. There will be people around me that will do really well, get in to festivals, get films produced by the NFB, etc. Be happy for them, and stick with the story you want to tell. don’t get distracted. These words stuck, until yesterday. I saw on a facebook update that one of my classmates got in to a NY and LA film festival. I felt myself wanting to press the like option on the update, or make a comment. I couldn’t do it. It felt phoney. All I could think of was that he go in to 2 festivals with his film and probably more. It’s really good, of course he got in. It has a personal, but more general life message about it. Mine is awkward and very personal. I don’t doubt the appeal of what I made. I just don’t want to care so much. What matters was that I was proud of it, and of course that other people liked it, I didn’t just make it for me. I’m feeling less confident right now. I just sent off this application to Maysles Films in NY that felt messy, and awkward. The story concepts were awkward to me, and the dvd cover was frayed from my own bad cropping, there were 2 typos in one of the reference letters. I had 3 letters. They only asked for 2, so I held back one I felt I should have sent, the one without typos, the more subtle one. I also spent money mailing it when I could have e-mailed it. I drove myself crazy sending this thing off, and now I don’t even really care.

I’m starting again, the me bullying. It’s when I’m left alone with myself for too long. We start to get in to it. I have to remember from this last experience that getting to the story I want to tell is an awkward process, sometimes it may be less so, when the story is clearer, less personal. I want to be happy for him, genuinely. He is a sweet and talented person who got in to 2 festivals. I want to be happy for him, when my head clears, when it feels genuine. This is the part where I remind myself that I’m doing the right thing, what I’m supposed to be doing. to not get easily discouraged, to not let the jealousy get me, distract me, and eventually I will be less jealous. I already am.

this one is all about awkward feelings…

Some lines just feel to obvious to write, like “I had so many thoughts running through my head”, of course I do, that’s why I do this, so I can feel a little less crazy. I went to see this film a few weeks ago, which made no sense since I don’t have money for rent or food, but I’ll go see a documentary about a monk that was imprisoned for 33 years, just in case I run in to this person. The 2nd to last person I had any serious physical contact with in the last 4 years, we made out, we didn’t play sports. I try and sound so careful and I just sound weird. I get ready to go see this film. I put on my yellow pillowcase skirt with the blossoms and branches on it that I just sewed, needs a slit, because I can’t bike in it, and I wanted to bike there, didn’t happen, couldn’t ride, and didn’t feel like I had the time to change clothes, and the outfit seemed more important. I get on the bus, and It’s the usual hell. Some drunk guy leering at me, talking to himself, people guzzling their beverages, and this one woman who was practically yelling on her cell-phone. I get off, finally. I figure if there are no seats, it’s fine I wasn’t meant to see it. I got there, plenty of seats, no sign of the 2nd to last person I made out with 4 years ago. Not a big surprise.

The theatre is filled with mostly white people, and some young Tibetan musicians performing on stage. I am feeling extra weird, like I shouldn’t be there, and then feeling like I needed to get something from this. I listen to the story of this man, Palden Gyatso who endured 33 years of torture for the right to pray, amongst other things, but quite simply to practice his faith, and he did. Even while he was having electric prods shoved in his mouth that destroyed all his teeth, or being forced to crawl on his knees over glass and small stones, being hung naked upside down, and beaten with a series of brutal instruments. He practiced his faith while he was starving and thirsty. He no longer had family, his father and brother had been beaten to death, and his step-mother had also endured beatings, his mother died the day after he was born. I kept wondering what was the matter with me, why wasn’t I feeling any strong emotions for him and why was I critiquing this film? That’s not what I was there to do, but I felt it happening while I was watching every scene. From the lisping European torture expert, to the overly dramatic music telling me when I was supposed to feel fear, terror or sadness. He had me twice, when he spoke of his first meeting with the Dalai Lama and telling him his story, and the soft breath he took in when his suffering was acknowledge by his spiritual leader. The other is when he told the story of licking his teeth to gather saliva and giving that saliva to his good friend Lobsang and feeding him like a parent feeding a child. I see him cry for the first time, I get a small sense of the weight of his sadness in this moment. The Dalai Lama doesn’t come across as a clearly sympathetic figure. I have heard him at public talks and he has been much more effective, for me anyway, when he’s not speaking in English, his meaning seems to get lost otherwise, not uncommon, we often express ourselves best in our own language. The other part that I had trouble with was the demonizing of China, it felt too simple. virtuous and peaceful Tibetans along with their western allies facing down the G-dless Chinese.

I felt like this man, Palden Gyatso, didn’t get the telling he deserved. Something didn’t sit right with me when I was watching it. Like if the story was told in a different way would more people see it? Would it have made a difference to the situation in Tibet? Could it have been more healing for him? and why didn’t I like him more, I wanted to. I wanted to appreciate this film, because it is an important story. The title Fire under the Snow is a powerful image in my mind. The title is based on Palden Gyatso’s book. I think the problem was that I didn’t have faith. I didn’t have faith that anything is going to really change.

What I appreciate about buddhism is that asking questions, seeking deep truths are a great part of the practice. Questions of ourselves, and each other. I often feel like there is no room to question when there has been severe trauma and suffering, like somehow it would take away or deny the suffering or the trauma to question it. I see it in situations where there is poverty and abuse. We don’t question the wealth, because they earned it apparently, and if there poor, well, bad shit happened. There is no tidy end here, so It ends here, with more questions.