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Great things are done when men and
mountains meet;
This is not done when jostling in the street. William Blake (1757 - 1827)
I can still remember the feeling of jubilation I had ten years ago during the American Summits tour when the 75 or so of us that were trapped at the 17,200-foot level of Mt McKinley were able to crawl out of our tents after five grueling days from a battering storm and experience the joy of freedom. During this past year, I’ve been experiencing another sort of freedom after a self released exile from a seven year retirement that in some ways, has made me feel like some sort of Rip Van Winkle. Having to face my fears of the outside world, I’ve had to acknowledge the fact that I have had it quite well living on a ranch tucked away at the base of the Sequoia National Park. But alas, boredom began to set it during those retirement years. It was as if I just had a bit too much of Paradise and it was time to leave my self created Garden of Eden. Besides, I said to myself, I’m much too young to be retired. There’s still so much more I wish to accomplish before I leave this world. If I cease to be creative, then I will cease to be... And I knew that if I were to cross the threshold back into the real world, I would have to face the public and brush up on my social skills (amazingly I found I could fall right back into). That part began over
a year ago when the Cuba book was going into production, followed by the
enormous task of being writer-producer-lead actor of my very first feature
film. But I managed to get through those periods of self doubt and found that it was going to be okay. As I used to think during the filming of Yesterday’s Dreams... it was as if I didn’t know how to swim and was suddenly thrown into the deep end of the pool, but it was okay, because there were others in the pool already waiting to help me along. All this ongoing training and new found experience has now led me to continue to improve my meet and greet status with the third project I began during the book and film phases, yet won’t be realized until 2008. This project literally involves the entire world, and because of the enormous scale and size of what’s about to take place, I’m hoping 30 months is enough time to turn the dream into reality. And there was no starting off slow to acclimatize. You just had to jump in, picking your spots where to land; being well trained from previous experience and with the confidence to know that you belong and that, Deo Volente (God Willing), it would all work out just fine. And it was. Better than I expected, as I headed to Los Angeles and San Francisco for days and weeks at a time, enduring numerous meetings; smiling more than I usually do, as well as dressing up in a suit more than I have in a long time (in retirement, you slack off more with jeans and t-shirts, or what we like to refer to as the casual look). The work; the effort paid off and will continue to show over the course of the next couple of years as we begin to move forward, a step at a time, setting up one domino after another until it’s time to knock them down and watch a wonderful effect take place. Now, later this month, it’ll be time to do another sort of meet and greet as the world premiere of my first feature film, Yesterday’s Dreams makes it’s debut on the silver screen with it’s first official audience (for further details, please check out the announcement on the Home Page). Talk about a dream come true! If this isn’t real, please, don’t anyone wake me up, I’m having too much of a good time! Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was stuck in a ghetto and my only escape was either the library or the local movie theatre that showed third run films for 50 cents? Those two places that were like second homes to me where I could lose myself; dreaming of going to exotic places I could only read about in books, or sitting in a dark movie house with perhaps a handful of people; losing myself in other stories; other eras and worlds; seeing myself up there on that larger than life screen in another time and place and world that was so far different than my own... yeah, someday... And now that day is about to arrive, meeting and greeting, and playing host to another audience that will make their judgment known to me with silence or applause of the project that has taken the last two years of my life to see to fruition; yet in reality, more than 35 years has passed since those childhood days of wistful fantasy when I found myself by losing myself at the movies. On some days, I wish to run back under the covers and return to the non-existent world of retirement, but I realize that my time and place on this world is short lived, and that I must occupy and do all that I can to make a change for the better before I depart from it for all eternity. That’s what keeps driving me to move onward and upward, ever forward, never in retreat. Lord willing we should all be so driven. Until Next Month, Kevin |
MEET
& GREET
Talk about a culture shock! Going through production on the book was nothing
compared to dealing with the production of the film with a crew of 40, along
with numerous extras at any given day. Sometimes my social skills were superb,
and on other days... well, let’s just say they were less than so.