How I want to be

Since last Sunday I live in Gand, to work for the Film Fest. 

My father arranged a home for me, 15minutes by bicycle from my the office of the Film Fest. The 66 year old lady lives in a very cosy apartment, and has kind of the same decoration I have in my house. Colorful walls, decorated with souvenirs from whole the world, like paintings from Nepal and water bags from Egypt. Cupboards full of books about traveling, spirituality and romans. The house has a nice smell of warmt and hospitality. She is such an interesting person. She volunteers, travels, and hikes a lot. She hiked from Belgium to Santiago de Compostella some years ago, and even reached heights of 6000 meters height, with an age counting more than 60 winters… She is very simple in her way, totally no materialist, but saves money for journeys. She is not stressed, and relaxed, and that is why she looks so strong. She is in fact how I hope to be, when i am 60 years old. 

I am so grateful to have her in my life, and share some relaxing moments, tea and good conversations in the early morning and late evening. 

Colors in Stories

                    

Since a couple of weeks I am preparing the production of a music video for the amazing group "Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes". I love this band already for years. Some songs remind me to memories, or persons. Every time I hear 40 Daydream I see myself in one of the most happy and inspiring weeks of my life, waking up early in the day, surrounded by the sound of the jungle of Koh Phangan, a Thai island, singing, doing yoga, writing, touching leaves when I run to supermarkets... I lived like in a Daydream there. So many amazing things happened there to me. Desert Song accompanied me a lot when I was hiking in Argentina. Kisses from Babylon, the first song I heard, was brought to me by a music video. Someone shared it on his facebook, and it appeared on my news feed (viva social media... I guess). I saw the music video... and I was in love with Edward Sharpe and his band, bringing so much music and color in my life. And now... this band gives every film maker the chance to make a music video. The winner gets some money, and becomes the official music video. 

So... since two weeks, my friends from Visual Okapi and I are brainstorming. I will not tell too much... just that I love the whole preproduction, even I am so busy doing 4 other jobs. 
You get so creativity, and also get inspired so much others who join you in this process. Today I met someone from Visual Okapi I only know his name. He is going to be one of the cinematographers. He sent me as preparation a video, called "Holi" and it is amazing. The colors are so inspiring. Such movies, such moments... give reasons, colors... why you want to invest all your time and energy in dreams and passions, although you've 4 other jobs. 

I was a bit sad last week, because I heard I failed an exam, which keeps me away from calling me a graduate. I don't know why I fail for this one, while in the last 6-7 years I passed exams which were 100 times more difficult. I try already for 3 years (6 exam attempts) to get over this last subject, but I don't succeed. It  absorbs all the colors from your environment. 
I know I am not motivated for the subject: it is Macro-econimics, telling how you can put whole economy of government, consumers... in formula. Maybe I don't like this whole capitalism... because I feel, or I want this, I grow more into ecology and sustainability.  
But I am also a human, who has to survive, and find a decent job so I can pay bills. I cannot live forever in Neverland. In the end of this fairytale Wendy flies back home to become adult. It is good to have passions and colors in life, but you also need a white canvas, structure and responsibility in your life, I feel. In Belgium, being a academic undergraduate is not enough...
... so I don't know what to do after my internship, which will end in October. I think I am afraid. 

But maybe fear is a good thing. Or maybe not. Who says... 

When this person of Visual Okapi and I went to the forest behind my house to do some location scouting for the video, I witnessed how a big tree fall down. The gardener was cutting down two trees, because he was going to plant a whole row of  garden trees for a fence, and these two old trees would drink all their necessary water to grow. It was impressive. One hour later I explained the camera guy that one part of the forest was more wild, because we didn't come there, because of the tragedy that happened there. "Now I witnessed how powerful the fall of a tree is..." I murmured, "I understand why people can get killed if they get this on their head."Still it is a mystery. I saw the tree falling, and it went so slow... that I wondered every person could step out of the wrong direction...

... or even if time goes slow... can you not step out the wrong way? 

Maybe I shouldn't bother about a diploma I don't care about. Maybe I lose my life by thinking too much about regrets and fears... than enjoying the colors around me. 

Later they burnt the trees. The smog went to the forest. It was spooky... and beautiful. 

Finding a Voice

No picture of the Israeli heroines rafting, but from a silly
Belgian girl teasing the Nepali rafting instructors, November '11

Almost two years ago, I met several nice Israeli girls in Nepal, during a rafting trip. They were "mute": they communicated by Sign language. I was impressed they thraveled through whole Asia. People call me brave, or insance, because I traveled around the world on my own... but I think there are more courageous girls. I always say that I want to travel so much as possible, before I loose a leg, or something... but they could travel, with more handicap than I ever had. That is strength. 

Several months before I ended up in Nepal, I did a diving course with my good friend Sarah. Our diving instructor was also Israeli (coincidence?). He told me he loved diving, because in the ocean... nobody can talk to you. It is complete silence and peace under the surface of the water... 

The Ocean is also a theme my friend Andrew and I are working around: next Summer, we want to make a short film with some fantasy or escapism elements, in San Francisco, which I will combine with another idea, dream... I want to do there. The Ocean represents so many things: in many cultures it is the womb of humanity, the source of all beings, the beginning of everything... Also because of her connection with the moon, and the cycles -you know, the tides-, the Ocean is also connected with the feminine... 

During our brainstorming I remembered a short story, a modern retelling of "the little mermaid",  I created in my mind, also based on the impression the mute israeli girls made on me... but I never fished out this story out this ocean of ideas, to write down... but finally I already started to make a first draft, to put all the ideas in some logic on paper... So this is not yet a short story... but it is a beginning... maybe a beginning for a script of a feature or short film :)

So... guys...  tell me I have to kill this darling, or give it a chance to grow :)
Do you think I have to give this story a voice? Because there are many stories, without voices, or ears... and it is up to story tellers to connect stories with voices, and then find ears for them.

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Prologue: A young woman is standing on a cliff, looking at the ocean and crying. From where is she? I didn't connect any location with her, or this story... 

We go back into time to know why she is crying.

She works as cleaning lady in houses old people. She has a grandmother, who lives in a cottage on the beach, close to the sea. Her grandmother has this witchy look, shells hanging in the wooden porch, a lot of art direction referring to the sea, nature... it is no wonder people say she is a witch.
This young woman cannot talk. Some superstitious bigots say that her grandmother stole her beautiful voice...

You've a handsome young man, whose passion is to dive in the ocean. He loves the ocean. He has a little sister. He teases his sister, when they walk to their old aunt, because after he explained her why he loves diving (for the silence) she dreams to be a mermaid. She is cute, 10 years old.
He leaves his younger sister in the garden, where his aunt is drinking lemonade, proposing he will take his own drinks. His aunt says that her new cleaning lady is mute, but he does not hear (watch out, there is a lot of metaphors about silence, ocean...) and sees the young woman, looking fascinated to an old expensive wooden boat. She startles, when she notices him, and starts cleaning the house.

The young woman goes to her grandmother, gives her a kiss, on her grandmother's cheek, her grandmother remarks she is a bit more nervous than else, and forces her to look in her eyes, "to read her thoughts", and then goes to the ocean, to sit there, and look sad to the ocean. Her grandmother looks to her granddaughter. The moon appears.

the young man goes diving. In the meantime, his younger sister is playing the little mermaid. She plays that the mermaid needs to save the prince, who felt into the water. The young man goes into the water. The young girl also tells loud what happens, and says the Sea Witch did some magic to let him drown, so he would be her food. At that moment some candles start to burn, and the young sister is scared. She runs out of the room. She yells to her aunt she felt something happened to her brother.

I am Diving in the Stories from Colombia, April '12
# just adding pictures in this blog to make it more colorful ;)

Her brother is in the ocean, and then gets startled when he sees a flower, who suddenly puts some purple liquid to his mask. He panicks, and thinks he will die. He see flashes, and also flashes of fishtails, and then from a girl, and then from a mermaid, back a girl... and next time he wakes up in a bed in the house of the grandmother of the young girl.The grandmother explains her granddaughter saved him from drowning. 
He asked "how", and the grandmother says the child has a deep connection with the ocean. She has some powers... The young man is a bit confused. 
The grandmother explains that the sea took the father, her sisters, and because of this deadly boat accident, also her voice, some years ago. 
"She could sing amazing songs to her sisters... but now she cannot talk."

He follows the grandmother on the porch. He sees the girl in the distance, and then he got pierced by a nail. He bleeds, the grandmother gives him a tissue... and then he remarks he should warn his family he is ok. "They don't like it always go diving alone..." 
"Deservedly," the grandmother remarked.

(When he arrives, his young sister embraces him, and told him she had a bad feeling about him. He talks with his aunt about the old woman at the beach, and her granddaughter, who cleans, and his aunt is one of the superstitious bigots, warning him for the magic of the sea witch. Young sister is impressed, and remarks the girl is maybe a mermaid, but he laughs, but then gets these flashes he got, when he had almost no oxygen, of the mermaid. Maybe leave this part away?)

He looks up the young woman, who is crying, on the cliff (like in the beginning). He wants to thank her. She looks up, and then he remembers she cannot talk. He gives her a smile, and takes a seat next to her. They don't talk, and look together to the ocean... the beginning of a new friendship, or something more...

Epilogue: the grandmother/sea witch is brewing something in her kettle, and puts the tissue with his blood in the boiling water... So is there magic... or is it illusion and fake?