I think most mildly overestimate how much free time I actually have to explore anything creative. I see a lot of creatives constantly posting things online, and I fail to understand how they do it.
A lot of them don't have kids, mind you, which makes a lot of difference, but most seem to simply have the freedom and resources to go out and accomplish something whenever they want, with a list of willing participants at their beck and call, like they don't have bills to pay or any responibilities. For me it has always been one or the other: either I have a decent income but no time; or I have all the time in the world but no money; and this requires money, if not to pay models for their abilities, which is a solid investment for those who understand, but to even go places: gas, entrance fees, food, film...et cetera.
Maybe the average person is just better at managing everything than I am, which I always assumed, and is always why I searched for people to manage my brain and my time. A lot of creatives live in that magical, Narnia-esque world where people actually pay them to shoot places and people and products. I obviously don't have any accounts, and even fewer individuals supporting me. I'm just a guy with a camera, though not a "GWC", or maybe I am. This has all gotten overwhelmingly depressing.
Now I'm looking at making an investment to make my film work relevant again, but on a practical level I'm staring blankly at the wall wondering what the point of it all is? The internet is saturated with art that is clearly far more important than mine, so why do I keep doing this?
This is naturally the age old creative conundrum, but as my work tapers off more and more, and I have less time and energy to do what I love, I can feel my dreams slipping off into oblivion. I remember my father teaching me how to play something on the guitar when I was a kid, and I, seeing music as an ideal in life and recognizing how much better he was at it than I was, asked him why he didn't pursue music; why didn't he chase his dreams?
He said that at some point you become too busy with life, and paying bills, and dealing with children, so your dreams get set on the shelf... until your wife throws them away because they are just taking up space in the garage. That is referencing my mother, who at some point threw my father's creative collection away, deeming it unimportant, only to leave him later because she deemed him not good enough. My wife supports my work as much as she practically can, but the relevance of it all has come up on a number of occasions, and I often feel like my creative hands are tied.
This is by no fault of hers; it's just life; which I now understand was my father explaining to me that at some point you grow up. I swore I would never abandon my dreams, though. I am obviously not the character I wrote for myself as a child, and I have abandoned music and acting even though I excelled at them, but even this one little thing that I decided to hold on to is slowly fading, "back to the futureing," to quote the latest lego movie... don't even get me started on the last time I watched a good, real, adult film, that I always relied on to rip my aching heart out and show it to me.
For years I have been writing about the creative struggle, generally wrapping my drivel up with something along the lines of "we just keep going," but it is certainly draining to be here: juggling two kids, with one's school and activities, my big job, my wife's supplemental multiple jobs... you quickly go from doing something creative, to thinking about doing something creative... talking to people about shooting, to thinking about talking to people about shooting...
... until you realize that you're just rushing home from work most days to make sure your wife can get to her job on time, and your day off together ends up getting cluttered up with things you need to get done.
Life: the delicate balance of working your ass off to break even, and letting go of the things you love in learning to love things that benefit the ones you love...
A dear friend of mine takes care of feral cats on my little mountain, which basically consists of feeding them and giving them a garage to protect them from the elements.
They were obviously a bit more friendly with their food givers, but I occasionally fed them when the foster parents were out of town, and they were unfriendly to say the least, glaring at me from the shadows of the garage. I even lived in their guest house for a couple months when I accidentally left my second wife, and they didn’t come anywhere near me, which I found frustrating because most animals come right up to me.
That was a decade ago. In 2011 they asked me if I would like a kitten from a recent feral litter. I said no. I didn’t want a pet that I couldn't pet, and I was still recovering from losing my previous awesome cat to what we assume was some drunk driver.
I dealt with him having an inoperable broken tail and being incontinent for weeks, until a “good citizen” in town saw him out in the snow (he loved the snow) and took him home, where he shortly died.
After much deliberation, I decided to give this little bastard a shot. He hissed at me the entire drive home. When I got him to the theatre where I was living, I just opened the carrier, and he darted under my bed.
I left some food out for him, which he didn't touch, and randomly popped my head under the bed to say hi... for three days. On day three the food was gone. When I checked under the bed he walked right up to me. Not only did he let me pick him up, but he was totally cool with me holding him upside down, scratching his belly, and putting him up on my shoulders. He was a wild, stubborn cat, so I only let him go outside on a leash, which he reluctantly did.
I took him off the leash when I was confident he wouldn't disappear into the forest, but he would just follow me around and stare at me. Not only did he become the insanely friendly theatre cat, but he claimed my little mountain town as his own.
I would regularly get calls from businesses all over town to let me know where he was. He ended up being so friendly that I had to get him a collar, not because cats get lost, but I was afraid someone would steal him.
He would walk up to strangers with dogs, and hang out with the raccoons that lived in the tree next to the theatre. Sometimes he would disappear for weeks at a time, and just wander back into the theatre like nothing happened.
When I would pull up into my parking space, he would jump up on my hood and wait for me to get out. I once saw him get swarmed by a pack of coyotes. He swatted at them, climbed a tree, and jumped onto the roof of the theatre.
He would wander into the theatre while movies were playing and harass customers to pet him. He would curl up in bed with me every night, drooling profusely as he purred. He had no positive sound, being a wild cat, so his meows were just a squeak.
It was him and I against the world, literally when the theatre sold and I was fired and evicted from a job that the digital era had deemed obsolete. I found myself alone in the desert for a couple years, unemployable, begging for help, with this awesome cat.
I eventually found this amazing woman who would become my wife, and her Elmira-esque 1 year old, but he assimilated pretty well. He wasn't too thrilled about the addition of the feral Chairman Maow, but he eventually learned to tolerate him.
I mentioned his reputation in town, but he also found communities of people that loved him and fed him in the desert, and back on this little mountain. The initial call was always the same from new people: "we have your cat."
The answer, "let him go."
We knew something was wrong, but he was a stubborn scrapper. He spent his final weeks curled up with us on the bed. He didn't complain or whine. He just purred when we touched him and drooled all over the place.
We just made sure he had food and water, and plenty of love. He slept a lot, until he wasn't sleeping anymore. After waking up with us, he made his way into my office, and the kids play room, and sprawled out under a fort that the girls had made.
He looked completely at ease, except for the "squeak" snarl stuck on his face that greeted me so many times, like it was painful to try and meow. I will never find another soul like him. It was his time, and he had an amazing time... except for Chairman Maow... Chairman was a pain in the ass.
