Taking Time to Enjoy My Son
BY JASON WERNER, MESA, ARIZONA, USA - One week without working on the project and I’m getting that panic feeling in my gut. For me it feels like the calm before the storm, like sitting upon the back of a wild bull when you know any second the horn is going to sound and that gate will swing open. Even if you have ridden this bull before and you have trained to ride it again, you never know what it will do. Whether this bull spins, or kicks, I’m holding on.
Today, I’m taking the time we have to enjoy the finer things in life. Spending time with my son, Tristan, is one of the finer things; today he wants to go swimming. Sounds good to me. Why is it that one person’s loss can cause us to look at our own lives and appreciate what we have? Every time I hear Jabbes’s story about how he lost his son I get a feeling of guilt. Maybe this would be better described as empathy. All the love and hopes I know Jabbes had for his son, I also have for mine.
Another thing I’m doing is reading books about Zambia. What a beautiful place; a land I’ve only seen in magazines and now my dreams. I have looked at image after image of the people and landscape preparing to storyboard with Heath. Maybe it’s the heat here but I keep having a vision of myself standing in Lusaka working on the film and drinking soda from a glass bottle. I know it's weird but I think one of the first things I’m going to want when I get there is a soda. Well my son just told me with the most serious look in his eyes, “I have my shoes on Dad. It's time to go swimming, ok?” What can I say? It's time to go swimming.