"Four Days and Not Much Longer...Let My Spirit Pass"

Reeling again.

It's interesting.  Many times throughout this process I've felt as though my fate was rising up to meet me.  So many things have fallen into my lap.  So many moments just seemed to work out.  I remember early on in the production phase feeling a fear that the story wouldn't be interesting enough.  I kept reminding myself that whether or not it would be interesting was not my problem, the filmmakers would have to figure that out.  In the end this story has proved to have more twists and turns than I think any of us bargained for.  Ray could easily make a provocative and moving four hour film at the rate we're going.

But nothing comes without a cost.

There's someone in my life who just can't be in my life.  Someone who I would liken to a tornado filled with razor blades - get too close and you're sure to be decimated. Years ago this person was a huge force in my life.  A major part of my weekly existence.  This person would swing from love to rage in a breath.  I was always the bad guy.  I was frequently yelled at, hung up on, and gossiped about.  This person would call my husband in an attempt to get him to see how terrible I was. For some reason, I lived with a constant fear that this person would leave me.  I apologized regularly and tried continually to keep this person from getting upset with me.

Three years ago I made one of the hardest decisions of my life; I walked away from this relationship.  I didn't cut anyone off, I simply stopped pursuing.  I would long to call this person, long to hear that voice even if its words were filled with anger, even if it left me crying on the floor.

It took a really, really long time for me to go a week without missing this person. Then a week turned into two, and on and on.  It's been so long since this person has been close enough to my life to damage me that I forgot just how breathless this person's unique brand of pain can make me.

In an effort to thoroughly tell the story of Booker Wright's life it was important for me to reach out to this person.  I thought that I could control the communication.  Keep it in a box so that I was never surprised, never taken off guard.  Well, Saturday morning the box exploded and the razor wielding tornado was unleashed.  The last several days I've been trying to "stay in my cubicle".  This is a phrase my girlfriend coined about 11 years ago when I was going through a rough time.  I stay in my cubicle, keep things simple, and wait for the wave to wash over me.  "Let the oceans dissolve away my past."

I think I may need a new cubicle.  Today someone mentioned my tornado and their involvement with this film and I almost started crying.

Part of me can't believe all the ways that this project has reached its tentacles into my life and reawakened wounds and family complications that I thought were long since forgotten.  The other part of me thinks, "Of course, what did you think would happen if you started digging up the past?"

I know I must sound crazy.  A few hours ago I was posting about how I finally feel excited to go back to Greenwood.  Now, I'm talking about tornadoes made of razor blades.  I guess this is the reality of this project for me.  Highs and lows.

On this next trip I'm not staying at the Flats.  I'm staying at a separate hotel.  I will literally have my own cubicle.  I think I'll need it.