Connections

I can see it. It is behind the shadow. I can hear it. Along with an echo. I can smell it. Simultaneously foul and fair. I can almost touch it. But when I grab, it is gone. The ‘it’ in question is the open. It needs to set the stage, arch an eyebrow, introduce the protagonist and offer the potential for engagement. If you, I or the average viewer isn’t hooked like a large-mouth bass in the first sequence, the odds of landing that fat fish for dinner, vanish downstream. It is that important. 

For three days now I have been trying to script the open. Last night I had another anxiety dream. They are kind of funny in a way that a keynote speaker might get a chuckle at a psychiatry convention. I have them a lot, mostly about forgetting to complete a protocol that is integral to keeping my heart beating, like a procedure that needs to be done every day and I have somehow managed to forget the technique and lose the hard copy ‘how-to’ paper. All I know, in this wickedly morose dream state, is that I need to do something quick or I will die a slow and painful death. And for the life of me (sorry) I cannot remember what that thing is. It is like waiting for the elevator in a Steven King movie. After several ‘running clock’ minutes I either wake up or decide that I am no longer scared of dying. Last night was a REM variation on this anxiety theme. It was the last night house sitting in a cozy, warm, ultra-cool cabin. I have custody to two standard poodles each I am sure who have MBAs. They are sleeping downstairs, my eyes are tired from reading a novel hard to put down, Garth Stein’s wonderful Art of Racing in the Rain, and I doze off in the overstuffed king-sized guest bed. It is almost midnight. Suddenly I get an emergency message on my cell announcing that the house alarm system needs to be re-set or the cops will soon show up with their Glock’s out and up. 

In a moment of panic I decide that since speed is of the essence, I can do this in my underwear and fly down the stairs to re-set the house alarm system and save myself, the dogs and the owners who are undoubtedly on the alert call list as well, from a nightmare of embarrassment. I get to the kitchen and look at the motion-controlled light switch. And then to the dining area and inspect the heating/AC control. Mind you during all this I am watching the clock and 100% on another planet, sound asleep and walking through the code red, five-alarm emergency. I quickly make my way completely around the house checking all the switches, knobs, control units and anything that looks like it might have the ability to turn something on or off. I am standing in the living room, tickling a rocker switch that controls the patio lights when it dawns on me that there is no alarm system. The owners would have briefed me and left detailed instructions. I am left standing in my shorts at one minute past midnight. I wake up, humiliated by my inability to separate reality from the nocturnal imaginary world of high anxiety and wonder what, exactly, that was all about. 

Because it has to be about something, no? Like the forgotten manual defibrillation technique that has saved my carcass approximately one hundred times now. Same thing, yes? Why can’t I simply be a normal person and sleep uninterrupted and have nice dreams about warm beaches, brown bodies and classical ukulele music like everybody else? 

 I don’t know. 

What I do know is that someone, somewhere is trying to tell me something. Or that all I need to do is slow down, relax and listen closer with an appreciative and inquisitive ear. 

My interpretation is that there is a connection between the neurosis of my anxiety and temporary insomnia, and the key that will unlock the opening dialogue of the new video. They share something in common and it is my job to find out what it is. I can feel it. It feels like swede. Or mohair. Or Italian marble from Carrara. It sounds like a symphony, or a jig, or a polka. It smells like Mom’s spaghetti or Dad’s beer and looks dark, forbidding and absolutely beautiful. I can touch it. I can have it. It has been here all along. There is only one thing left to do and all will be proper, energized, illuminated and cathartic.

Start.