Flying Home (Bird’s Eye View)

Getting out of L.A. is the most beneficial thing one can do to gain perspective. There’s nothing like a midnight run, red eye flight, and lost weekend to refuel the tank.

My goal when we first moved out here was to go home for a few days every three to six months. It took me over a year to go back for the first time. After that, there have been longer gaps, but I’ve averaged about six months between trips. Too long for my taste.

I have most of my family and friends there, and although the humidity sucks, I have always found much inspiration in those characters dwelling on the South-Eastern tip of this country, preaching and cursing in Spanglish.

While I'm in L.A. trying to write the great American Spec, my little sister is growing up and my friends and parents are growing older, all out of view--an exchange I'm still on the fence about...

I’m heading home for my mother’s 70th birthday. Since last year, she’s been asking for nothing else than all three of her sons being home at the same time, so we’ll be making it happen for the first time in many years.

There is nothing like my mother’s long hugs and endless words of encouragement to set me forth for another round on my long road.

Less than 24 hours from now, I will be enjoying Dunkin Doughnuts with my parents on the ride home from the airport. In 72 hours, I’ll be gazing nostalgically at Miami through the window on the way back west.

I hope I will be able to relax during the in-between time. I need to chill out, even if it’s in the Miami heat. Detox from worrying about the constantly shifting variables of the new draft of script 13—and even more so, of the seemingly endless limbo of waiting for news from Argentina; it’s similar to L.A. in that way.

Hopefully, I’ll gain some perspective on being 3 months behind schedule with the new script, still in disjointed contact with my reps from the Boogie Scandal, and on the repetitive frustrations of dealing with certain parties that will remain nameless.

With clearer perspective, I may actually find faith and comfort in knowing:

1-The new script is behind schedule because I am trying to personally raise my bar and that takes time.
2-The hurry-up-and-wait I mentioned weeks ago is for a film that will get made—with a six figure budget, three great leads, and top-level keys—along with my name on it.
3-The reps will wait until further developments before doing anything drastic, and that I will survive any set-backs as long as I keep writing with my head up.

I need to be on the outside looking in, to focus…and to remember that there is life outside this enchanted kingdom.