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I lost my wallet recently. It wasn’t so much a wallet like you might imagine, I dislike your typical cumbersome wallet, it was more-so a discreet bankcards & notes holder, but that’s beside the point. I lost it, and so before I found myself in a Ruth Marx/Angela Bennett situation, I’ve had to go through the usual wallet grieving process: canceling and ordering new bankcards, wallet shopping for something not nearly as attractive, crying, and an afternoon at the DMV getting a replacement drivers license.Much of my few remaining belongings that I’ve managed not to lose in this, the most airheaded year of my being, are in storage back in Chicago. By storage I mean in the back of my friend & fellow classmate Javi’s closet. I had to haul ass back to Chicago last week to grab my passport to take with me to the DMV.

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It was a brief foray away from the rural confines I’ve once again become accustomed to trapped in a filmmaking bubble on location throughout northern Indiana and southwest Michigan these last few months. I stayed with my friend Garret in Lakeview, and when I got up early to put parking on my car, it couldn’t have made for a more picturesque morning. The neighbors were watering their lawns as others walked their dogs. On the corner a middle-aged man sat, drinking his coffee and reading the paper in the shade. Then came the early morning joggers, whose sole purpose is to make me feel sufficiently lazy. Bleary eyed and barefooted, I drank in the moment.

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Now that I’ve endured all the grieving stages, I am finally at peace with the loss of my wallet. Life goes on. And these words have helped. The wallet’s parting gift was this timely reminder of a city that I can’t wait to get back to. This summer stay in New Buffallo MI, buried away on low budget indie feature Swan Song has provided such a vast learning field. And as such brought a lot of fun and new friendships. These very hands you see belong to some of the most talented and hardworking crew I’ve been fortunate to work with. You know, people who still own wallets.

I can’t overstate how much I’m enjoying the experience, but still, I couldn’t be looking more forward to diving into this next and final year at Columbia. My first project will be mine and my thesis partner Emily’s thesis film He Owns It, We Built It. We travel to Kansas the day after I get back to Chicago for principal photography. Imagine kids running through sun-basked wheat fields in the dog days of summer, shot on the school’s camera department’s prized possession; the Alexa. And mostly steadicam. That film too is about grief… such an emotional summer. I’ll write about that next. In the meantime, this is only sort of interesting; what does your wallet say about you?

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