I haven’t done this in years. Before this blog flooded with people reading my posts on film and TV, almost no one read it. Leaves in the Pages was a personal journal of sorts. I didn’t have a following or hundreds of regular readers every day. I kind of said whatever I wanted, cause…I could, haha. Over the years, my writing style has changed, but something that I don’t do as much anymore is talk about my personal life. I’m not talking about the people I brag on like my super sisters Nicole and Robyn, or my incredible parents Sharon and Russ. I talk about them plenty. I mean MY personal life. I just felt like I had moved past that on this blog. Today, I’m indulging that younger, beginner blogger’s style and dipping into something that I feel lead to share. A rare internal vulnerability if you will. Continue reading “Promises in the Dark”→
He’s arguably one of the most liked and equally disliked people in the country right now. I know reading back on this, that fact might change either way, but as of January 2017, at the beginning of his Presidency and first term…he’s made some very bold and unfavorable moves.
If you haven’t heard already, Shia LaBeouf has minutes ago wrapped up his 72 hour marathon watching his movies. The thing is, he set up a live stream of himself…watching his movies. yeah. In New York City’s Angelika Film Centre, he sat through, in reverse chronological order–I can only assume so that people would see his better works first, for three days. AND, you could watch him watch his movies for the entire time that he was watching his movies…wherever you were in the world. HERE is a link to some of the feed that was recorded.
I can only assume that millions have tuned in to see what the big deal was about. He made news headlines, the story hit viral on multiple sites, twitter exploded with people who were watching or were in the theater with Shia watching, facebook tossed around his live stream site, etc, etc. Some were tasked to watch as much as they could to take snapshots of all the best moments of Shia watching his films. At roughly 7pm East Coast time, the marathon ended with Shia getting up and walking out of the theater to everyone applauding. He shook three hands on the way out, but then it was over. As quickly as it began, it ended.
I would say that I watched about 30-40 min of his live stream. Some yesterday, and some today after work. I made sure to catch the end of it. I have to say, I had some thoughts about the whole thing during and after it was all over. It’s not news to me that in the past five years or so, Shia has been branching out artistically. He will do things to make people think, or to seemingly shock and awe people. People would think him weird and odd. Some would say that he has mental issues or that he’s “not all there.” I wouldn’t be so quick to label Shia in this way.
Two nights ago, I started doing something that I haven’t been able to stop. I started writing about my past. I started writing down any and all memories that I could think of, unhindered and unfiltered. I then started to categorize them into Good, Neutral, Bad, and Good/Bad memories. I can’t really explain why I started doing this, but I haven’t really been able to stop writing for about two days now. Any free time I get, I jot down a memory that comes to me, which will lead to another memory…so on and so forth.
The process has been incredible. All of these memories are inside my head, just filed away somewhere and pulling them out/recalling the details of events has been both challenging and incredibly therapeutic in some ways. This is an exercise that I would recommend to my clients. I just decided to do it on my own for whatever reason. The memories I choose are generally before high school, as in, any time after high school seems closer to “recently happened” rather than “past”. Semantics. I would say that about 98% of my memories are things that I would be able to share with my two sisters and parents, as they are all characters in said memories. 1% of my memories they don’t know because only I experienced them, and the last 1% are memories that I don’t see myself telling anyone. Some things belong in memory.
I have written about 11 pages so far, or 6,500 words, and if I had to do maths on what I’ve done, I could probably write another 20-30 pages (12-18,000 words). It goes without saying that I am not going to start posting my memories to everyone, as that cheapens my experiences and I’d like to share those with someone special someday….not the rest of the world. Still, there is an example memory that I can share with you all, and I think it accurately reflects my process. Enjoy this memory of mine, circa August 1999.
Once, my family and the Zehrs, a family I grew up with knowing and hanging out with, took a vacation to Michigan. It was Robyn, Nicole, and myself in my family. Ashley (Nicoles age) Alaina (my age) and Allie (Robyns age) in the Zehr family. We rented a beach house somewhere off Lake Michigan. I still remember pulling up to that house. Turquoise in color and fully awesome. I ran into the house and threw my stuff on the bed that I called dibs for. I then ran to the backyard…we had a HOT TUB! This was awesome. I was never allowed in the hot tub before. We jumped into our suits and ran down the beach. Freshly sun screened and eager, we marveled at the size of the waves. Equal parts frightened and gitty, we made sandcastles, sand towns, rivers of water, and sand angels. We burried each other, and swam in the lake to wash off. We ended up in the hot tub, me with my cubs hat and shirt still on, the others being crazy…which was business as usual. I remember that house being so beautiful and reeked of “summer” with scents of sunscreen, bugspray, and BBQ. The house even looked like summer with shells everywhere, rope, sailing pictures, fish art pieces, wicker furniture, plenty of windows to let the sunlight in, etc. I loved it. Our families took turns cooking dinner, and we would all congregate around the big glass table to eat. Unrelated, but this is around the time that Prince of Egypt came out, and I was listening to the soundtrack the entire trip, ha. Loved that movie. To this day, both the Peterson family and the Zehrs remember fondly on that trip and how incredibly relaxing/fun it was. It was a golden week. Untouchable.
It is said that there are about 2.3 billion ‘moments’ in the average lifetime of a human being. Why that precise? In the average life, there are 2,366,820,000 seconds, 39,450,000 minutes, 657,436 hours, or 27,393 days for those moments to happen. Moments are made every second. They say that someone is experiencing something incredibly significant on the planet at all times.
No video could more accurately appreciate the seconds in this lifetime more than Andre & Markus at “The Beauty of a Second” vimeo channel. Here they really convey how precious the moments that we have in life truly are. Additionally, they prove how tragically and at the same time beautifully fleeting this life really is.
With each of these moments often come memories. Memories that if you search yourself, will have more of an impact than you anticipated. Some memories are bad, but for most the good memories are stored in a special place. The good memories seem to be placed in an area where they can’t be touched, waiting…waiting for you to remember, or access them again. I think this is healthy and keeps us alive, filled with hope for a better time, a happier time. In a project done by Galvea Kelly from Ireland, this director takes on a simple mission. 50 people in Chicago, one question: “What is your favorite memory?”
Moments in life happen all around us, and I wager that we most times are numb to the insignificant ones. Why would we pay attention? In this incredible visual collage of everyday moments, Vitùc shows the viewers that moments are everywhere, and these are some of the “under appreciated” ones that happen right under our noses without us sometimes even noticing them. To quote Vitùc, “the simple things of everyday life.”
Finally, I wish to show you, the readers, an incredible “life art project” in where the filmmakers, musicians, artists, politicians and cats…I’m quoting them on that one…, kut, come together to create a moment. The video is truly beautiful as they attempt and succeed in creating an artificial environment in an otherwise impossible situation. I like this philosophy. When you have an idea that will make people laugh, scratch their heads, giggle, play around, look like fools, or wonder…then MAKE that moment happen, don’t wait for it to fall into your lap. And that’s exactly what these people do.
All of the stories and moments that you found on this blog post today were originally found at the Incredible website Colossal. I would recommend checking it out and having your mind blown each week.
Additionally, if you want to check out more moments in life, there is an ENTIRE ARMY of people doing this very thing in New York City called “Improv Everywhere.” These people are creating, most times hilarious, life moments every. day. Enjoy.
Leaves in the Pages 