sieve - slow sifting

editing my short film has been hard. i have always been a harsh critic of the contours of my face and the broad sway of my gait, so hours of footage with an abundance of both has been an emotional trial. the first day i began sifting through the footage, one of my best friends, sitting on an adjacent couch, watched me writhe inside, trying my hardest not to feel the restless shame coursing through me. it had already held me back for months, but i still couldn't avoid it. and even with that first victory over inertia, it's taken me more than a month to fully step back into the project again. a month of avoidance and distraction. a month of sitting and mulling about it in the back of my mind. but not actually looking at it. not actually doing it.

until today. 

at the gentle promptings of another friend currently walking the hard road of a passion project of his own, this morning found me at my desk with the project hard drive. finally. and it was still hard, but a little easier than last time. and after a half an hour of enforced focus, i set my alarm for 20 minutes and vowed i wouldn't check in on facebook, email, or my phone until the buzzer set me free. but it only took me another few minutes until i found the below frame and suddenly felt....

felt a lot. 

something new and exciting and confident, and an amazement pure and full: these are my features, this is my face, but where did the purpose come from? the fierceness? and what about those lines? the life and stillness of the frame as a whole, it swooped me up and carried me along until i realized lines and phrases and editing choices were scattering themselves into notes on a page. today is the day a new life began for this project and i'm not exactly sure where it will take me. 

in the meantime, i'm very grateful to my two andrews, one my collaborator and the other my guardian angel to this project.