Winks
Somebody winked at me the other day. I was tired. I'd had a busy week and really just wanted to not be bothered, but I saw the wink and had to take notice. Who doesn't like a wink now and then? Who doesn't like the attention?
I'm in the middle of doing too many things, but surprisingly I'm handling everything quite well. Recently, I'd been flip-flopping on whether, or not I should try and direct a feature script that I've written. The self doubt crept in, "Maybe a more experienced person should do it." I also have short film script that I planned to direct this year. As it is the end of November, it's unlikely that I'll meet that goal. I can't really say what kept me from getting to that this year. I mean, I did have a lot going on. I suppose you can't do everything. Anyway, back to the wink…
I have every cable channel possible. I don't watch 'em all, but I like having them. That's not exactly true. I have ALMOST every channel. One channel that I didn't have was BET Jazz. I don't know why, but it just wasn't included in my extended package. Last week, by what I thought was accident, I hit the channel "up" button instead of the volume and to my surprise, I now had BET Jazz. They were running a short films series. I was tired, so I Tivo'd it and went to sleep.
I woke up and when I opened my eyes, I saw about 4 seconds of the end of a short film. It was a black and white film. I was still groggy, but I sat straight up. I knew it was my film. Well, not really my film, I wrote it. I'd never seen it before, because somewhere during the process of it getting produced, things got a little strange. To sum it up, someone else took credit for my work, produced the film and disappeared. I don't know how I knew those four seconds of flickering black and white light were from my film, but I did.
I rewound (I LOVE DVR). Sure enough, it was the film based on a script I wrote. My name was nowhere to be seen. There are a lot of ways you can feel in a moment like this. The most common would be upset…but I wasn't. I've been reading a book called "When God Winks". The book talks about moments where God makes you aware of his presence to send you a message, to communicate, to lead. For me, seeing this film that I've never seen before, on a channel, that until that day, I did not have, was a wink. It was confirmation that I didn't have to wonder if I could make a film, I already, in some part, had. I think if most of looked back at the coincidences that surround major events in our lives, there's usually a pattern and some sort of direction. We all get the winks. We just have to pay attention.
