I’ve written much about my mother. By now everyone who has read my stories should realize that while she led a very difficult life, she somehow managed to rise like the Phoenix again and again. She was a generally optimistic person who found good in all people and who needed very little to make her happy. It was only when her bipolar disorder raged through her system that she became a sad, frightened, and mean spirited person. I was generally able to separate the real mom from the one who periodically emerged as a result of the disease. I think that most of the people who knew and loved her were able to do so as well. All in all her generosity and thoughtfulness greatly outweighed any ugliness that came to the surface during her dark times. Continue reading “Love is the Word”
Tick tock! Tick tock! We live in a world that is a hostage to time. We have clocks on our stoves, our microwave ovens, our phones, our wrists, our radios, the dashboards of our cars, our computers, our televisions, our mantles, our bedside tables. Reminders of time are everywhere and we seem to always be rushing from one place to another, one task to a different one. We time ourselves when we exercise, when we take tests, when we cook. Tick tock! Tick tock! We rush around all day long, in bondage to schedules that seem to dominate every waking minute of our lives. We tell ourselves that we must be here, be there, do this, do that within a certain time frame or we will fall behind. The moments when we are not near a time piece of any kind are rare. Our lives seem almost to be a competition to see how much we are able to cram into a day, an hour, a few minutes. We measure the success or failure of a twenty four hour period on how much we are able to accomplish. Tick tock! Tick tock!
I’ve been working the summer school session at Cristo Rey for a couple of weeks now. It’s a kind of dreary affair. The students arrive each day with a demonstrable lack of enthusiasm. They would rather be anywhere but in school attempting to recover credit for courses that they failed during the school year. They are generally well behaved but mostly just resigned to their fate. They are motivated by a desire to finish their modules as quickly as possible so that they might actually begin to enjoy summer. Some of them dug such deep ditches for themselves that they will be working until the end of July. They will be lucky to get a couple of weeks of holiday before the daily routine of the new school year begins again. 
I so love movies! My idea of a perfect day would involve watching one favorite flick after another without a care in the world, no laundry, no bills to pay, no cooking, no worries whatsoever. I suppose that it is not at all surprising that my granddaughter has been completely taken by the prospect of working in the film industry. She comes by her love of movies naturally. I suspect that it is in her DNA. At this juncture in her young life she is mostly fascinated by the art of learning about all aspects of the trade. Landing a starring role is secondary to her love of the process. She is just as happy with working all week long on a set only to be featured for a split second as she would be if she were one of the major characters. She so enjoys watching the anatomy of a presentation unfold and she imagines herself one day working as a production designer, a career that would use her creative and artistic abilities quite well. She has already done a research project on the job and knows which universities in the United States offer the best educational programs for learning more about the filmmaking trade. As of now she is most interested in one day attending NYU or Northwestern University but I suppose that in the next seven years there will be many changes in who she is and what she wants to eventually do with her life. In the meantime she is having great fun learning about all of the facets of movie making.
