Wildest Dreams

Ah lah. It was another good day although it was a hot and sweaty one.

Freddie showed up with two actors, his beautiful girlfriend and his sometimes crew member. Jessie was here and she was immediately recruited as an actor. Freddie explained the concept of the next movie to us and then we went down to the closed corner store and he filmed Jessie and another actor for about two hours in the steamy, buggy heat and I never, ever knew there was so much damn traffic in Lloyd.

"Action," he'd say, and then he'd shoot for four seconds and then another car would come through.

Ah. It was hard.

But I found it thrilling. This is all just so new to me and I actually love the way Freddie works. It reminds me of how when we were kids we would pretend.
"You be a mermaid and I'll be a pirate."
"You be Tarzan and I'll be Jane."
"You be a soldier and I'll be a nurse."
And then the pretending would begin.

It's just like that, only someone is filming it and that doesn't get in the way at all.
I love watching this process. It's like the film Freddie gets is the raw material and he takes it home and weaves it into his vision of a whole cloth of a movie. It makes perfect sense to me although I know this is not how it's usually done but because of budget constraints it's how it has to work. He's almost apologetic about this but frankly, I think it's the guerrilla nature of it which charms me.
And they're coming back tomorrow and then I'll get to "act." Again, I am playing the mother of the actor who was Jeremiah in Faceless. Freddie liked our "chemistry."
Which is fine. These are two completely different characters and whatever Freddie wants me to do, I'll do. Up to a point, of course. Freddie has a lot of religious beliefs I do not have but I respect his and I think he respects my point of view. I even gave him a rosary today that someone had given me a long time ago. My feelings about the cross are not positive- to my mind, you might as well wear an electric chair around your neck or have at the front of your church, but that's just me and so it seemed to me that giving Freddie this rosary was something that would say to him that I recognize that he believes what he believes and also, it would get that rosary out of my life and into someone's who would appreciate it.
"Perfect," as Kathleen would say.

And now it's Saturday night and Prairie Home Companion is on and I'm going to bake sweet potatoes and cook pork chops and Lis is on her way home and I feel good, even though I cried a little when she told me she had to go.

I am constantly amazed these days at all the goodness in my life.
Amazed.

All right. Off to cook pork chops for the man I adore who got to go play with the grandson I adore and there you go- if it could get any better than this, I couldn't handle it.
Let me add that I filled out a Gallop poll today about wellbeing and I think I probably skewed the results right off the charts.
I am filled with wellbeing.
My favorite question was, on a scale of one to five, how truthful is this statement for you?
My life has exceeded my wildest dreams.
I gave that one a five.
And then shook my head in disbelief.

But it was true.

And on top of everything else, the butterfly ginger is blooming outside my kitchen door.
If there is a heaven, I have no idea what the streets will be paved with but believe me- they will be lined on both sides by constantly-blooming butterfly ginger and the air will be filled with their fragrance.