The anticipation of an airport good-bye fills me with dread and reawakens the muscle memory of all the tough good-byes from my eight years living in London. I felt anxious when Tom dropped me off at the airport, even though we would only be apart for a few days. I feel this way whenever we travel without each other. No matter how many times we do it, my mind always conjures horror stories of things that will go wrong while we’re apart. Maybe my plane will crash. Maybe he’ll get in a car accident. Maybe the dog will be run over by a bus. Worst case scenarios dance through my brain as I check my luggage.

Flying solo can be a good thing

Then something funny happens as I pass through security and head to my gate. The cars stop crashing in my mind and a lightness comes over me. Being a lone traveler feels energizing and full of possibility. When you’ve been in a relationship for a while, you’re used to consulting with someone on choices all day. It’s liberating to say: Yes, I’m going to grab a latte at Starbucks and not ask Tom if he wants one, too. Even though he’d say yes, there’s just something about making my own decisions that feels like an indulgence.

I worry I’ve become too dependent on Tom. He’s naturally good at pretty much everything, which has made me lazy. When we travel together, Tom glances at a map of a new city and has his bearings right away. I can travel the same route 10 times and still not remember the route. So it’s easier to let him do the navigating. We’ve fallen into gender stereotypes when we’re out together. He always pays at restaurants or the grocery store for some reason, even though we share a bank account and the money is coming from the same source. If anything breaks (electronic or otherwise) I don’t bother trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. I just call for Tom and he fixes it in seconds.

While it’s lovely to have such a smart, reliable husband who takes care of me, I worry that my independence has eroded. I come from a long line of not-so-independent women, and I feel like I’m fighting against a genetic “dependence default”. Traveling on my own reminds me that I’m capable and connects me to the importance of carving out time for myself.

All that said, being away reminded me how many times during the day I really want to share something with Tom. I don’t feel like I’ve had an experience if I can’t talk it through with him. I’m used to blurting out any thought that comes into my head to him (much to his chagrin now that we’re working from home together). The truth is that most of the things I do in life are better with Tom by my side. I guess that’s a good way to feel about your husband…

How about you? Do you relish your alone time, or do you like to do everything with your partner? Women, have you fallen into some bad habits when it comes to independence, like I have? Any tips for making sure you keep the balance?

Eight (eight!) years ago this month, you decided to go to that party with Rik and both our lives changed. We had one of those conversations where the world disappears and time slows down. We kissed on Poland Street. We delighted in a shared love of Waterloo Bridge. You made me lasagna and we watched Lost in Translation (you passed the test). I walked you to the bus stop, then you walked me back to my apartment and that was it for us. We were together.

One the second anniversary of us meeting, you planned a whole day of fun for me in London. It was freezing, but we walked through Highgate Woods and watched a French film. You were quiet all day… because you were walking around with a ring in your pocket.

Early signs of our future obsession, circa the honeymoon

Just under a year later, our family and friends converged in London for one of the most wonderful, chaotic, exhausting, amazing weeks of our lives. If I could live any week over again that would be the one, especially that Saturday at The Groucho Club which, in addition to being the day we were pronounced husband and wife, was the best party I’d EVER attended. The less said about the cyclone on our honeymoon the better, but it certainly taught us that married life would have its fair share of storm clouds. And that all we needed to survive them was a few (hundred) games of table tennis and a camcorder.

By our first wedding anniversary we had uprooted our entire lives and moved to Boston. We were so tired and overwhelmed that winter that we only had the energy for a quiet dinner at a local restaurant. We started our anniversary rituals: treating ourselves to a bottle of champagne and buying the traditional anniversary gifts (which I might not have agreed to if I realized how long it was before we’d get to “diamonds” on the list).

For our second and third wedding anniversaries, we were in the midst of the failed suburban experiment and let’s face it, we were a little bit lost. No one tells you how tough those first years of married life can be. Well, maybe someone tells you but you just ignore them. Either way, there were points when I think we both wondered how many more wedding anniversaries we might see.

Anniversary walk (well, sprint) on the beach

But then things changed. By our fourth wedding anniversary we were in the midst of a revolution in our lives and were starting what was the very best, happiest, most fulfilling year of our marriage. We kicked it off with a new tradition: a winter walk on the beach and fried clams (well, for me). In the past year we learned a lot about ourselves and decided to take a major risk together. We had more fun than we’d had since we first met. We worked really, really hard. We laughed all the time.

Now here we are after five years of marriage and almost eight years together. We have a lot to celebrate and a lot to anticipate. Experience has taught me that there will be other storms, other arguments, other tough periods in our marriage. What I hope is that we never lose sight of how much better we’ve made each other’s lives; how much we’ve challenged and pushed each other; how much we’ve been able to grow together. Married life with you has been an incredible adventure and I hope it keeps feeling that way for a long time to come.

Happy 5th wedding anniversary, husband-face!

Love,
M

P.S. Don’t think I’m giving up on the vow renewal idea….

The perfect gift for a cheesy V-day. Hope Tom got the memo.

Because we met, got engaged and got married within the same week as V-day, we never used to celebrate the holiday. And let’s face it, even when you’re madly in love there’s something annoying about being ordered to feel romantic for a whole day. Especially when that day is in February and usually cold, gray, rainy or snowy. But last year, I decided to embrace the spirit of Valentine’s Day as part of my year-long effort to stop being grumpy about major holidays (you might recall the whole “kicking the Grinch out of Christmas” initiative).

This year we decided on a theme for V-day. We wanted something that captures the essence of the day, and decided what better way to celebrate the cheesiest of holidays than with actual cheese? We’re having a cheese-themed V-day, from the cheesy scrambled eggs we’re eating at breakfast to the cheese plate we’ll nibble on while watching one of the many cheesy romances I’ve put on our Netflix queue (I’ve been waiting for the perfect excuse to watch Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier in Drives Me Crazy).

What’s your plan for Valentine’s Day? Will you be celebrating or ignoring it? Any cheesy plans of your own?

No-one says I just don’t think of you that way.

Instead they say unfortunately we don’t have a slot in this year’s program, but that is by no means a reflection of the quality of your film. We received an overwhelming number of submissions for a limited number of spaces.

We’re 0 for 4 on festival submissions for 24 Hours At The South Street Diner. Sundance was always going to be a long shot. South by Southwest too. But True/False and FutureShorts didn’t seem like they’d be totally out of reach. We get that people are looking for more controversial and edgy material than the story of a neighborhood diner, but dammit, at least we shot something that looks like a movie and not someone’s brief experiment with 1987′s cutting edge Hi-8 technology.

I’m trying not to let it get me down. On the medium-distance horizon is the notification date for IFF Boston. It’s our glimmer of hope. If anyone’s going to like the story of the diner, it’s going to be the locals, right? Right? But if someone wouldn’t mind tracking down Program Director Adam Roffman and sleeping with him on our behalf, we’d really appreciate it.

What makes all of this rejection easier, of course, is going through it together. And we’re in a pretty unique position. Sharing rejection with someone who was only my filmmaking partner would take the sting out of it a little. Having a non-filmmaking wife to sympathize would be great. Having a wife who also shares ownership of the film and what it means is truly exceptional.

So even if we don’t make it into IFF Boston, we’ll still have each other. That’s what really matters when all is said and done.

(But we still reeeeeeeeeally want to get in, just in case you’re reading this, Adam Roffman).

Livin' the Downton way

I just spent a few days visiting my parents. It’s weird but wonderful to visit “home”. A place where other people procure and prepare food for you, always picks up the tab at a restaurant, buy you cute clothes just because, even make your bed while you’re taking a shower. It’s what I imagine life would like with a Sugar Daddy, or if I lived at Downton Abbey.

My parents’ house is spotlessly clean. I don’t know how they do it, but I never see dust on shelves or dishes left in the sink or scuff marks on the floor. They never run out of anything– there’s an abundance. The refrigerator is always stocked, their huge bathroom is full to the brim with yummy-smelling soaps and lotions, there’s a stack of magazines to read, the television in the guest bedroom has more than 1,000 channels. When I’m there, I feel a soporific sense of being safe and protected; like I’m a kid again.

I’m 34 years old. Every week, my husband and I stare into the bright, bare abyss of our refrigerator trying to figure out what recipe we can concoct from half a cucumber, olives and a block of cheddar cheese. We’re often on the brink of a toiletry crisis. We don’t have cable TV or a car. Sometimes I wonder when we’re going to grow up, and suspect maybe we’re not… or at least in the same way our parents grew up.

When my parents were 34, they had a 7 year old (me) and a 4-year old (my brother). They had to think about getting us to school, preparing our meals, taking care of us when we were ill. Letting the refrigerator go bare or giving up their car wasn’t an option. Neither was the risk of starting their own business, renting their house and moving to the city, or taking time off to travel. My parents’ decision to start a family put them on the path towards a specific kind of adulthood; one with responsibilities that Tom and I don’t have. And let’s face it, responsibilities that we’ve run a mile to avoid.

I love the life that Tom and I have made for ourselves, I really do. I can’t help but worry, though. If I don’t have kids and experience that kind of adulthood, am I an adult at all? Am I in a state of suspended adolescence, never moving past the inherent self-absorption of youth?  Am I on a path to being 70 years old and still shopping at Forever 21? Will the day ever come when I learn how to buy enough food at the grocery store to make it through a week of cooking dinners?

How about you? Do you feel like a “grown-up”?  When did you realize you had passed into adulthood? Did it involve having kids or was it another rite of passage? As always, love reading your comments!

The music in the reel is from the delightful and deeply talented Jenny Mayhem, who let us use the song for free. To allow us to thank her for that, please go and buy her EP (name your price) at jennymayhem.bandcamp.com. It’s reeeeeally good.

Something we realized last year was that we can only make beautiful wedding films at beautiful weddings, so the quality of this reel is very much down to:

The wonderful couples we worked with:
Thu & Tuan
Lisa & Charlie
Matt & Chanda
Haily & Son
Megan & Sree
Brendan & Katie
Jeff & Eunis
Matt & Susan
Brian & Becky
Megan & Bobby

The fantastic venues we shot in:
The Commander’s Mansion, Watertown, MA
Boston Harbor Hotel, Boston, MA
Indian Pond Country Club, Kingston, MA
Seaport Hotel, Boston, MA
Wychmere, Harwichport, MA (Cape Cod)
The Fairmont Copley Plaza, Boston, MA
Potomac Point Winery, Stafford, VA
Chatham Bars Inn, Chatham, MA (Cape Cod)
Hotel Marlowe, Cambridge, MA

And the fabulous pros we worked alongside:
Trung Nguyen – photographer
Paula Marrero – planner
The peerless Leah Haydock – photographer
Heather Bee – photographer
Megann Gregory – photographer
Zev Fisher – photographer
Mike Paganelli – DJ/MC

Here’s to a great 2012!

We had a mild fall here in New England, so there were actually still leaves on the trees. Becky & Brian had great weather for a November wedding – clear and sunny, with just a little wind when we got close to the beach.

Like us, Becky & Brian are not only married, but also run a business together, a fashion line called Mahi Gold (if you look carefully you’ll see their logo in the trailer), and, in fact, when we emailed them the link to watch the trailer for the first time, they were at a trade show in Florida, and had to race back to somewhere with a good internet connection to watch it.

We’ve been meeting a ridiculous number of awesome, talented and super-friendly photographers lately, and we had a great time shooting alongside Meghann and Ruth. You can see Meghann’s shots from the day on her blog.

It started out innocently, with me trying out a new “seductive move”. I’m not going into specifics, but let’s just say it was a little gesture. The kind of thing Melissa would melt at if Brad Pitt did it in a movie.

Except Melissa didn’t melt. She burst out laughing. And kept laughing at me for a long time.

Seduction fail.

It got me thinking about something we learned last year: that people have different love languages, or ways of expressing love. For your partner to really understand that you love her, you need to express it in her love language. It’s one of the most powerful and useful marriage lessons we’ve ever learned. Now I’m realizing that this lesson might also apply to seduction. To successfully put the moves on, you’ve got to know your partner’s seduction language.

For example, I know what Melissa’s seduction language is. It’s French. She would find it incredibly seductive if I were French. Not just someone who’d moved to France and gained citizenship, but a full-on, culturally Gallic man, with the accent, the vague sense of arrogance and propensity to say the word ‘bof‘. I mean, if I moved to Paris now and really immersed myself in the culture, I could probably be that man in somewhere around ten or fifteen years.

"Bof..."

Or she would be very seduced if I could dance extremely well. I’m white, straight and English. I’m not sure there are dance instructors in the world who could get my skills up to snuff. Or she would be pretty damn seduced if I had Ryan Gosling’s body.

So I know what I must do to seduce her and it will just takes six months of grueling workouts for me to able to speak that particular “seduction language”. But what about me? Would I be seduced by walking around a museum in Paris or some salsa dancing? Nope, not really. My seduction language involves lacy undercrackers, hosiery, make-up and lipstick, skirts that ride up too high and tops that come down too low.

In fact, my seduction language doesn’t involve words at all. It’s more of a sign-language, actually. If I see that Melissa has slipped into some lacy knickers, I know she is sending me a seductive message in my language. But when I put on my best Calvin Kleins? She hardly bats an eyelid.

It seems to me that women, or at least in this case Melissa, have it pretty easy. I mean, what’s a quick trip to Vicky’s Secret compared to 6 months in the gym or 10 years in France? Still, if it means more sexy time than I’ll definitely keep pumping iron. Learning another person’s seduction language isn’t easy. But the rewards are well worth it.

And as for what the new “seduction move” was that I tried on Melissa? I’ve threatened her with divorce if she ever reveals it.

It’s now. Because today is the first day of my new life. Day #1 of going full-time at Long Haul Films.

AHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm committing to doing a lot more of this....

Before we talk about that, let’s cast our minds back for a moment. Last June, I drafted a blog about turning from a commitment-phobe into a commitment-fan. I spent a lot of my 20s not committing to a city, a job or a relationship. Whatever the situation, I told myself that there was something better out there. I felt rootless and I liked it. I actively chose (created?) non-ideal situations to ensure that I wasn’t tempted to commit.

By last June, I was on a path toward a very different existence. One where I took the time to know myself, figure out what’s really best for me, and go for it. That’s been my slow, difficult but illuminating journey for the past couple of years. In that time, I’ve committed to building a conscious marriage with Tom. I’ve committed to the city I live in. I’ve committed to new friendships and connections. I’ve committed to living outside of my comfort zone… in many ways.

But there was one commitment I hadn’t made. That’s why it didn’t feel right to post the blog. For some time, I’ve been in a demanding full-time job while trying to get Long Haul Films off the ground. Tom went full-time 6 months ago, but I held off. I’ve done everything to balance the two worlds, but the 7 days weeks have really worn on me.

More than the hours, something else was getting to me. I knew I wasn’t fully committing to either situation; not totally investing myself. My heart, for some time, has been with Long Haul Films. My head, for a long time, held me back from fully embracing it. Committing 100% to our young business means accepting risk, change, fear, exposure. It means closing doors on certain opportunities. It means going whole-heartedly for others. Commitment takes courage.

I’ve been struggling with the choice to make this commitment for a long time. Now that I have, I’m experiencing excitement and nervousness. I’ve been a bit anxious. There are sleepless nights, where my mind can’t stop whirring with plans and possibilities. But overall, I feel a huge sense of relief and inner calm.

I’ve committed to my business. Committed to my dreams. Committed to myself. Pretty big deal for a former commitment-phobe.

The interwebs are aflame with disbelief. Not Heidi and Seal! they say. Of all the celebrity couples out there, we thought at least they would last.

Am I the only one who thinks a white scarf runs the risk of making you look like Mumm-Raa from ThunderCats?

This got me thinking.

Why is it everyone was so convinced that Heidi and Seal’s marriage was so goshdarnit perfect? It’s not like any of us could tell how well they communicated, or how well they physically clicked and used intimacy as a glue to hold their relationship together. We don’t know what their respective love languages are, and how fluent each was in the other’s.

I did a quick google of all the blog posts and news items and it turns out that everyone in the entire world who thought they were a solid couple based that belief on one main factor.

They renewed their vows each year in a lavish ceremony.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s definitely a risk that if you do a lot to outwardly show how in love you are and what a great couple you are, it’s either an attempt to mask the fact that you’re a terrible couple, or at the very least it’s an activity that takes your energy and focus away from actually spending time doing the real things that will sustain and improve your marriage. Melissa thinks that the fact I’m making this statement on a blog all about our marriage is hypocritical. But the difference (I think) is that this blog is reflective of the amount of work we put into our marriage. When things aren’t going so well, we share it.

I’ve got nothing against vow renewals. Melissa is desperately trying to convince me that we should have one, as a way to mark the amazing improvements we’ve made in our marriage over the past couple of years. TLHP alum Alisa Bowman and her husband Mark had one because they turned their marriage around from the brink of failure.

But an annual vow renewal has all the power stripped out of it because it becomes a foregone conclusion. Which means you stop thinking about whether you want to renew your vows, and start doing it because that’s what you do. It’s a little like giving medals to all the kids who take part in the race. Sure, it makes it look like everyone’s a winner, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find someone crying under the bleachers before the afternoon is over.

Do you think there’s more to the Heidi and Seal situation than meets the eye? What’s your theory?