You go through each day - on a working day that is - quite methodically. Don't you? Hitting the alarm instinctively at 6:30 AM, catching that bus to work exactly at the same time everyday and eating your lunch almost at 1 pm . And how many things apart from the obvious do you notice in this sort of routine? Well you almost don't. Today, my evening broke away from that otherwise monotonous trudge back home alone, to cooking dinner and watching 'Felicity' just till I get tired enough to sleep. Today was different, perhaps the most different I've had in the longest time in this city.
I watched a couple in their seventies walk hand in hand till the end of the curb I was facing. They were on a stroll and as they came to an end, they heaved their shoulders, exhaled in sync with each other and then dropped their heads low shutting their eyes. They stood like that for a good 10 minutes. I am not exaggerating. I was eating take away chinese and watching all of this haunted almost in the beauty of this synchronicity, of their companionship, their grace and the fact that they weren't even of the same color. I bet it was a breathing exercise and their daily routine, but to me it was a reminder of the beauty of being with someone you imagined growing old with, doing things in harmony and just being at peace with each other's presence.
Later , I met up Newhouse alum at Venice in the nicest jazz pub I've been to in a while. After years of struggle, K is finally getting her scripts sold to big studios and producers. Her upcoming film is to be directed by Alexander Payne and a talk about adapting an Indian author's book into a mini series to be shot in India is on. K was nice enough to introduce me to everyone in her large LA family. Sandwiched between grown men and women, designers, writers, show runners and artists, I was struck by how blase this people were about their work. Not once did we discuss "the industry" or "our craft". The conversation was instead centered on our families, children, neurotic spouses and our parents. And the most upsetting stories were being dished out with such humor that I was struck by these bunch of people. They had barely met me for 10 minutes and here I was, in their fold...a cohort.
I won't wax eloquent about what the conversation trailed off to but the highlight off the evening , apart from having a writer from the Bill Cosby show speak to me for 2 hours was discovering that the designer I had been chatting with for over an hour is THE man who's designed the Focus Features logo. Focus Features! Those blurred blue dreamy lights inspiring you of a collective humanity in a city like New York or the promise of something better to come. How often have I stopped before shooting soft blurred night lights to remind myself why I love this idea so much. It started from FF's art.
Anyway, I need to meet more people, do more random pub/art crawls I guess as superficial as that sounds to sort of lose myself now and then. A friend couldn't have said it better. Sometimes too much is made of finding oneself. There's greater joy in losing oneself. I will add to that. Losing oneslef amidst people who are unknown and yet turn out to be more familiar or connected to you than you could imagine - that joy is even greater.
