It’s About Time
Tonight I experienced one of those rare moments in life when your expectations actually materialize in reality. It started about six months ago when I first dreamed up this project called Outwatch the Bear. I was finishing up my British and American Literature minor and had recently written a paper on Milton and Poe and the correlations that exist between their views of melancholy. Taking those aesthetic principles as a foundation, I developed a plan to create a piece of art that would embody a spirit of melancholy using my three favorite mediums: songwriting, photography, and filmmaking. Then I kept it to myself for a little over a month, turning over the various facets of the project again and again in my head. Was it over ambitious? Would I have time to carry it out? Would I be able to get the footage I needed while traveling? Would the technical resources I needed be available? Would my friends be able to help me at the right times? And most importantly, would I be able to channel the memories and relationships from my past that haunt me the most into a real, tangible, piece of thought provoking, emotion conjuring art? Was the inspiration there?
It is my great pleasure to announce that the answer to all of those questions is a resounding yes.
This evening, Dan Bakst and I watched 1/5 of the finished product. The song “Anchor Your Soul” with all of its water imagery and bitter declarations rang through the speakers of Dan Nguyen and Joyce Yong’s production computer as what seemed to be old damaged 8mm camera footage flickered on screen the abstract narrative I had pieced together in my head so many months before.
Before California.
Before winning awards.
Before medical school. And here it was, in front of me, just as I had imagined it. And even better perhaps because every second of footage and song carried memories of some of my closest friends lending their talents and skills to help me create an intensely personal work of art and one that I believe will stand the test of time better than anything I’ve ever created.
The whole thing is surreal.
This little break has proven much more profound than I originally predicted. Tomorrow I will stride into my new medically relevant, science centered classes with a sense of loss, gain, and achievement.
i’m excited for you pal!
