We change. Day-to-day. Month-to-month. Year-to-year. We change. We ebb and flow, as I stated in “An Ideal Day,” as a human being; however, instead of simply focusing on the up-and-downs, I also think of the various cycles we experience.
Beyond the life cycle – birth, life and death – there are times in our lives that we experience something in its entirety. Not just its highs and lows or ups and downs. With everything – art, relationships, careers – we experience the beginning, middle and end. It’s like a script or a literary piece of fiction or non-fiction. We come and then we go.
With my short film, I wrote it, made it and then screened it around the World. And now this period in my life has run its cycle. Birth. Life. End. I moved on and am now working on my next film, which will go through a similar cycle. Of course, aspects of the last film still linger; however, the period in which it held most of my attention has passed.
We go through cycles with people, too. We merge with others, like cars, on the Autobahn. We may pace each other temporarily, headed in the same direction, with the same destination in mind, before going our separate ways. Taking that off-ramp to another place. Perhaps we changed our mind. Perhaps we were never going in the same direction to begin with.
Cycles can be calm like a lazy Sunday or a moment in your life when you loose control, as if you’ve been caught up in a whirlpool or tornado. You fight to break free, even though you may be in love with this time and this place. Some people are momentary connections, while others last a few years, others a lifetime. The difference is in the longevity of that union.
Looking at my past journal and blog entries, I see my ever changing views on life: my desire to live in London changing to another city, Paris; being a filmmaker, who added photography to my palette; a displeasure with Los Angeles evolving to acceptance and then a type of love.
The written word is a great places to see the proof that you are growing. Or not growing. You see what you have moved forward from; learned from; and evolved so far to be. I see how I have evolved over time. This awareness is like watching the progression of a person other than you; however, it is me that grows stronger and stronger each day as a person and as “a filmmaker, a businesswoman, a lover, an environmentalist, a daughter, an individual and a woman. A complete human being” (from “Intrigued and Illuminated,” June 24, 2008.)
Each aspect of me in its own cycle. Perhaps we have numerous cycles going at the same time. I sometimes liken these periods of time to chapters or novels in a series. Sometimes we end chapters. Sometimes we end entire books. What I have to do is accept finality and fall in love with the next cycle; to fall in love with change.