I never imagined it would be like this.

The drought. Drought of passion. Of camaraderie. Of moving images. I was a productive film student. Three years have passed. In that time, I have aged and grown bitter. There are images inside of me; things of great import which I can only communicate through cinema. As the man I have become, they seem impossible to realize.

“Is it impossible?”

I ask this of the friend sitting opposite me. We are sitting on the porch of a corner café under a warm San Francisco sky. Like old men, we meet in this way every Thursday to be vulnerable with one another as we are with no one else, two artists flooded with doubt and despair who share those emotions under the protection of love and caffeine.

He is twenty-six, a brilliant cinematographer, author of the imagery of award-winning short films from my past. He has photographed two feature films in his career since, neither of them complete. I imagine he wakes everyday with the goal of articulating his thoughts with this composition or that. A man who speaks little, I’ve learned that his is a language of images and been fortunate to participate in it.

He says, “It is not impossible, only impossible so much as you allow it to be.”

He says, “It is not impossible, only impossible so much as you allow it to be.”

This follows a thread in our conversation by which we have realized that since graduation no one enrolled at the time of our schooling has picked up a small camera, gathered a group of friends and made a no-budget feature.

“There are no Joe Swanbergs among us.”
“We weren’t trained to think that way.”
“I’ve never made a film digitally.”
“I do own an HD camera.”
“Is it impossible?”

He and I will be drinking at five in the afternoon the next day. Happy hour with friends—a clothing designer, hard-hat warriors, maybe a girl or two. There will be pints on the table and a lone glass of white wine. As the rounds commence and the drink loosens me further, I will lose track of how many times I’ve pissed away five dollars just as it becomes too much. Through a cloud of drunkenness I will remember student loans, credit card debt, a cell phone bill, rent, and I will think, “For a man who cannot afford three drinks on a Friday afternoon, it is impossible.”

And then he will take a digital camera from his pocket and aim it across the room at a couple near the bar in the only pool of light in this place. He will show me this image later, maybe the following week at Americano Thursday, and I will marvel at his nuance, and it will all begin again.

I will say, “It is not impossible.”

And he will reply, “It never will be.”

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form