As the years go by, we always say certain things, cute little things, like "this year is going to be different," or "better," but the reality is always the same: it's just another year. We gauge our years by what happened, or what we accomplished, or things that went wrong, but I have begun to level off and realize that all the things that we give worth to are simply things... things that happen to everyone, always. A year ago I was fresh off of shooting Keira Grant and Katja Gee, having counted my pennies to drive my Jeep up to SLO for the opportunity. The trip itself was something significant, heading out into the world by myself, without that girl that was always there, watching the sunrise over the bay in Santa Cruz with some long lost friends, then arriving late to shoot in a makeshift location because of the rainy cold of San Luis Obispo. I wasn't happy about not shooting in nature, or the crammed shoot because they had somewhere to be after patiently waiting for me, but........... I was happy; strangely optimistic.
I went back to my shitty job in the shitty desert with a smile. Then, a year ago tomorrow, while driving up to my little mountain town to act as projectionist for our little film festival, I found myself upside down in my Jeep, my life flipped by a Ford Focus on one of the top ten most dangerous highways in the United States. Strangely enough, in an ultimate twist of fate, I can walk to the theatre to work the same festival tomorrow; which I guess would also be a twist of luck. In yet another twist of fate, when this festival started seven years ago, I was working for the same person I'm working for now, but at a different restaurant. I had to take a week off from work to do the festival, and when I returned my name was no longer on the schedule. That, I thought, was the end of that relationship. While working yesterday before having to take a week off, I glanced at the schedule and noticed that my name was missing. I had a little panic attack.
The year itself has been all over the place. I was finally coming to terms with the fact the the girl wasn't coming back from AZ, after waiting for over a year in the ass end of the California desert by myself, then I got a random message from this new girl in January, saying she wanted to shoot. That turned into this. She wasn't just a girl interested in modelling, and my life took a drastic shift in a different direction.
By the end of the restaurant season in the desert, I was living back in my little mountain town, we were road tripping up PCH, and she was pregnant. By the end of the summer I was a regular at the Zen Center that I grew up with but didn't realize it, I was back in the old boss' amazing new kitchen, and I was comfortably the "Baba" of a two year old. These are all things I've written about in the old blog, or here, but, really, contemplating this last year.......everything is really crazy.
It was a beautiful year. It was a beautifully tumultuous year.
She is now officially interested in modelling. We spent Christmas in AZ with her parents, and she worked with her first photographer that wasn't me. "Scotty" was great. It was a positive expereince for her, but she has since dealt with the typical "let's shoot" then backing out at the last minute from photographers so it has gotten a little discouraging.
On Christmas day we stopped to shoot a little while trying to make it back to the Zen Center for Christmas dinner. I'm getting better at shooting around a two year old, and the two year old is getting more patient with our shooting.
For New Years we headed out to the trash can known as the Salton Sea. We found a nice little abandoned structure that hasn't been demolished yet, but it was right on the side of the road and just up the street from a fire station that I didn't notice until later. While we were shooting, a fireman jogged by. He waved.
My focus at the "sea" itself was what I remembered when visiting as a child: dead fish; dead fish everywhere. I can't help but wonder how fish keep getting in there. lol. I've never been out there when the weather was bearable. Usually it's about 115 degrees, so, no people. on this occasion there were a bunch of people. Not just "people," but people with cameras... expensive cameras and fancy lenses, shooting....... boring shit; they were all shooting boring shit.
I was shooting her, and this.
My life.
I love it.
I haven't written as much, or shot as much, as I would've liked to, but everything is turning out beautiful. That was all I ever really wanted.
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