JOURNEY’S END. The journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step, and it ends with one too. We are close to securing a distribution deal for The Prankster. Not surprisingly, this step raises as many questions as it answers – am I doing the right thing? Is it the best deal? Will they do their job? Will the audience know about it, and like it? What do I do now??

Clearly, the immediate future will involve working out a fair contract, and then providing the distributor with the necessary deliverables. We’ll make one last review of the movie, mostly for QC and tiny fixes. Then it’s bon voyage. Rather akin to sending your kid off to college. Not a death,  but a moving on. The kid, the movie, will still be out there, but they now have a life of their own. They are left to their destiny.

It’s hard to let go, but what are you going to do? You can’t keep your kid locked up in a closet. They need to be released. Then we can only watch. The key, I think, is to not have expectations. Hard to do, but moving on to the next project will help.

I have a road comedy, Baja, ready for production, and a couple of other projects in the writing stage. A regular little movie factory, I am. Then there’s all the little home projects that have been on the back burner, and cleaning out the office, and that trip to New Mexico, to reconnect with my soul.

The Prankster journey has been two and a half years since development funding, and the finish line is in sight.  Would I do it again?  No, because I can’t.  I trust that the next project, if there is a next project, and you never know, will be exponentially smoother and easier.  If not, why bother?

The end of a significant life chapter, and this is certainly one for me, gives pause.  Questions and reflections abound.  This is good stuff.  I don’t know what the future holds, and I am okay with that.  I look forward to the unfolding.  As Suzuki Roshi said in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, our life is like being on a railway track, ten thousand miles long.  The sights come and go, the terrain changes, but we are the one constant, always there, experiencing and letting go.  The sun comes up in the east, and we eat cucumbers.  It’s all good.