A postcard from home.

I lost my home a long time ago. There have been too many different places in my life, all important to me, to call one of them home. I no longer have family in the places I loved the most (and my family lives in a place I've never lived). So I've stopped looking for home in a single place...and surprisingly enough I find it all the time.

Home for me is a fragmented concept--and it exists in many places all at the same time. Home is in the moments when I look around at my surroundings--the place I'm in, the people I'm with--and realize I wouldn't change anything, even if I could.

To me home isn't static. I change. It changes. Sometimes it only lasts a moment. Sometimes it stays put--and I know exactly where to find it. Sometimes I can't find it even when I'm trying. It often turns up when I least expect it.

Home is safety, and security, and comfort and freedom. I suspect that if we could stop being afraid we would be at home all the time.

So, my postcard is fragmented, a collage of many different places and many different times. The sun rises and sets everywhere--everywhere can be home. In Orlando, in LA, in New York. In places I've never been.

marie is breathing and so am i.

I am getting ready to make a movie and I can't remember what it's about. I KNOW what it's about, but I'm too much in the middle of it and every time I try to grab it, to reach for it, it disappears. I tell myself that that's exactly what the movie is about. That's what it is.

Everything comes into focus and out of focus. And sometimes it's heartbreaking. And sometimes it's just bearable.

I'm not confident or self-assured or in control. I'm no longer making a film; I'm birthing a child. And I have no idea what will happen.

I saw a film last night and it wasn't perfect but it was brilliant. Every shot resonates like the strings on an instrument, and I am at once awed and happy and envious and sad and alive. The film breathes-- just as it should.

i went on a trip.

Today I was very happy.
Today I was very sad.
It happened all at once and my insides are a jumble.
I might explode.

Sigh.

alix makes a blog site and george washington wasn't the first president. holy shit.

In the interest of saving me lots of time and loads of money (and also to learn a few things) I've decided to take a CLEP test in US History. Here are the highlights of what I've learned in studying so far:

1 slave = 3/5 of a person.

Slaves are not really slaves; they are, and I quote the US Constitution, "other persons".

Senators were not elected by the people until the 17th Ammendment was passed in 1913.

Oh yeah...and there were 7 presidents before George Washington and the adoption of the Constitution.
Granted, they had zero power...but still, it was a self-governed United States.
Have you ever heard of John Hanson? US president 1781-1782.

History is a strange and screwed up thing.