The last time I posted something to this blog, I was heading back to Tampa to shoot more of “Our Side of Joy”. I’m very glad I did because it wasn’t until I went to shoot some more of the twins that I was able to really capture what I wanted to capture about their relationship. I will write a separate post about this second shoot because it made such a huge difference for my film.

Although I’d returned to my hometown of Tampa, Florida almost every year since I moved away, I never truly enjoyed being there. But these past 3-4 times I’ve been back have really been quite amazing. I still have a somewhat love/hate relationship with Tampa but what I do know is that I have a wonderful nephew there who I wish I could see more of and all of my real friends are there. Don’t get my wrong I’ve made good friends everywhere I’ve moved, however they have not been lasting friends. At first I thought it was because it appeared we tend to keep friends we knew while we were children longer than ones made as adults. But I think what is more accurate is you will keep friends who strive for and enjoy friendships that are more than superficial and/or surface level friendships and unfortunately there are many people who only offer surface level friendships and this behavior can also be a part of the entire culture of a place (as I am witnessing here in upstate, NY). So I have decided to move back to Tampa as soon as possible for a maximum of 2 years.

Besides being closer to my nephew and wonderful friends, I have also changed a great deal since I’ve lived in Tampa and even since many of my visits thereafter. So what I’ve been finding is my own desire to “live” in Tampa because I hadn’t “Lived” when I was there. Especially compared to where I am, at this point in my life Tampa has a lot to offer me. From awesome food (OMG I never thought about this until I moved here. The food here is awful.) to many many creative outlets I can enjoy. Tampa does have an active film community which is a huge reason why I’d like to move back. I also feel like I can make many new friends in addition to the ones I already have. I can also accomplish some of my ideas for things like fundraising puzzle hunt races, murder mystery dinners, and my plans to start my own video series.

Over the years since I’ve moved away, I’ve also gotten used to traveling and driving long distances and just exploring areas further away from where I lived. I never did this in Tampa. So when I move back I plan to drive anywhere I want to go all over Florida and beyond as well. I plan to “LIVE”. I’m also planning to start traveling outside of the country more as well. For a while there, I was traveling to other countries every year and then the recession put an end to all of that. Now i’m back to a point where I want and can travel more and I’m really hoping to do that when I move back and after two years I will feel comfortable enough to make the big move out of the country. But also let me say this, being where I am now has been a serious learning experience. One, I’ll never waste my time in a place that doesn’t support who I am ever again. This has been almost 9 years of my life I can never get back. Two, I’m going to do all that I can to live life to the fullest anywhere I move and if in doing so, I am unable to create the social and personal connections that every human being needs, then I need to move. Being here has certainly taught me that having a good job is just not enough to make a person happy (at least not me).

I have so much to talk about, I’m going to have to break right here and create new posts for the other things I have going on. Just to share a little bit, I’ve started doing wedding videos to help fund some of my film projects and I’ve been thinking of new, fun ways to help fund my films. Also I’m really pushing towards finding a few editors to work with because editing is truly ruining my desire to make films and to enjoy the films I’m making. My publishing and writing has been suffering a little bit as well because of where I am right now but I have plans to get that back on track as well. So I’ll blog a little more about these things later.

Cheers!

There are times when one cannot even begin to comprehend the frailty of the human psyche. It is at these times when cruelty becomes the weapon of choice; its force twisting and burrowing into the depths of one’s mind; pulling from it, its worst fears; its deepest insecurities. What then does the world see of the wounded? The tear-stained faces of our babies; lips curled and quivering are forever commonplace among us. Our anger radiates in every direction and knows no boundaries.

I thought about these things, looking on. I watched his lips shape the words. I listened to them carefully. First they sang in whispered slow motion in my mind; then in an amplified scream.

“I will never love you”. The words were strong and deep as they slipped from his throat. I thought I’d seen a smile slide across his lips as he spoke. I’m sure of it, but in these situations one can hardly trust their eyes. A familiar, searing pain penetrated my frame. My body shook as it always had from the internalization of deep emotion I have yet to learn how to express. Had I not spent all my life hoping for his love those words might not hurt as much. Had I not endured many tearful nights praying to be saved by a father I had never met, I would not now be on the edge of insanity. No strength left to pull from internally as my mother made sure of that long ago. Do you think cruelty knows of the power of hopelessness or the sadness of loneliness? In a society of fantasy and selfishness, cruelty spreads easily without cure, hopelessness is embraced without hesitation and loneliness kills without prejudice.

My thoughts swirled lazily around my head, unable to stabilize should I find myself unable to handle it. But I am past that. I had spent a year and several hundred dollars searching for him. I imagined a life with at least one reliable source of love and support. Before I met him, there was always a chance of having that and it was a risk I was willing to take. I gambled and lost. Something I am used to but yet whose effects I am not immune from. My worst fear took shape in the sound from his lips. I studied the deep lines of age on his handsome face. At the insistence of his wife, we spoke for many hours. Him asking me question after question about my mother whom he had adored. He held on to a side of her I had never known and his love for that image of her left no room for loving me. I had tried to tell him of the beatings she gave, the rapes she allowed; the verbal assault she enjoyed. He would hear nothing of it; telling me from his own lips and heart that he would never speak badly of her. If only he knew the consequences of his refusal to acknowledge my suffering.

I had spent many years wondering what he would be like. I had imagined him to be kind, and nurturing, understanding and strong, yet he was none of that. Instead I found a man unable to stand up for what he believed in. His immaturity allowed him to abandon his responsibilities. He told me of the seven children he had fathered and of the six mothers to whom they belonged; including myself. He told me of his own desire to do what he wished and insisted that it had been my destiny to find him as though he were some god I would be lost without. I learned of a son he’d also never met, whose mother died while he was still a child. His life had left him sitting within the walls of the prison system. I made a new spot inside myself for his pain. Like me, he was a Fatherless child.

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until a sleepy lightheadedness caused me to sway. He caught me by the elbow and I quickly recovered, breathing long, deep breaths, trying to focus on the rest of his words. He did not acknowledge the cruelty in his voice, even as tears slid in rivers down my cheeks. He spoke so matter-of-factly as though he were speaking of someone other than me. I loved him before I had met him. It was not a knowing love like that between a parent and a child while it’s being raised, but a simple, connection through kinship love. He felt nothing for his own child and that I did not understand. He had known me for a while and had even held me on occasion at an age which I cannot recall any memory of him. He walked away as though I belonged to someone else to be raised by the hands of hatred.

My heart slowly sounds its lullaby
Ever so slowly now…
Weakened from struggle
Futility…
Its strength diminishing
Its fight lost
I hardly notice you towering above me
Chest swelling with pride
Hands dripping with my life
Knowing victory
I am the weaker one
You think…
Yet I am not the one whose heart is so cold and barren of good that the mechanism which makes it beat fierce as fire is an enigma to nature
I am not the one who cannot bare the warmth of another
I am slipping from the comfort of the earth
Returning to the energy of origination
My shallow breaths echoing in my ears…the last sounds I will ever hear
But I am not the weaker one
You will die alone by your own hands when your heart can get no colder and your hands no bloodier.