A Confession...

I have a little confession to make… As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been neglecting my Substack somewhat. I didn’t mean to. It just sort of…happened.

Here’s the thing. I had a bit of a work life change recently and I now find myself working in the movie world on, what else—a movie. Little did I know though…I’d be working nights. A lot of nights, actually. That involves me dragging myself to bed often as late (or early, depending on your POV) as 4 or 6AM. I spend the rest of my time in bed, tricking my body into thinking that this is sane. Then, once I’ve opened my eyes again, I spend hours convincing myself to get up and go to work again. This has made writing—outside of work, very difficult. But we’re marching towards wrap time in a few weeks and I’ll be back to whipping up random prose more frequently again soon. Hopefully, even more frequently than before as I plan to take the rest of the year off to write. “So please don’t leave me!,” she cried out to no one in particular and yet—to everyone.

What I’ve been truly encouraged by, being back on set, is the ability to have pretty open conversations with crew and cast alike, of all ages and backgrounds. It’s amazing what happens when you’re able to restore nuance into dialogue. There’s little that we’ve we’ve stayed away from, and much of it wasn’t even brought forth by me. I think that people are eager to have conversation about topics that concern us all. We don’t all agree on everything, but so far, it’s been very respectful, thoughtful, and sane. In fact, I especially love it when I find someone who is particularly educated on a topic, has a different viewpoint, and can show me the holes in my own without things getting heated. I’m grateful for it.

Now that I’ve freed my own voice, I’ve decided to stay committed to that and it feels great not to have to hide my feelings. I think also helps others be more free around me and we can have more authentic relationships with each other and with ourselves. That said, we spend a lot more time on pranks and general silliness than serious chatter because…well, life’s too short not to have fun. And the older I get the more I realize that adults are just grown up children, if we let them be.