How to Begin

There is at least a portion of my life that is spent in contemplation as to how to begin something- anything. It happened before I wrote the first word in the first sentence here- it happened before I wrote the three words in the title. There have been any number of projects where I have sat down to start something and after a point found that a beginning was not to be found, so I headed off in another direction or abandoned the attempt completely. There have been times when I found a beginning only to not see a viable ending. I remember hearing the term "analysis paralysis" in design school and not really grasping the whole meaning of that until I recently started gathering large quantities of digital footage for various projects and then sitting in a semi-stupor trying to figure out not only where all the pieces were to go, but also which piece in particular would perhaps be the catalyst that would jump start and carry the momentum of an idea from beginning to end.

The past week has been spent immersed in beginnings and endings here. As a part of a request from Greentech to document the changes happening at the Vashon Theatre I spent a good part of last week watching things go up and down there. A new projector went up the stairs into the projection booth. Before that, the ice machine had to come down the stairs to make room for the new digital behemoth. Inside the theatre, I watched as the old, pleated curtain was lowered one last time, and then an electric lift cart raised a basket and a carpenter who then took a pair of large scissors and sliced across the top in a number of rides up and down, until the last snip was made and the whole curtain slumped to the ground. The lift continued to go up and down as the metal pieces for the new screen were fixed into place. I got back too late the next morning to witness the hanging of the new screen, but did see it get strapped and stretched into place, followed by the attaching of the black masking that defined and cleaned its edges. It was interesting how the night before, in the areas where the new exposed and shiny metal frame sat a couple feet beyond the edges of the stage and into the territories occupied by Jack Tabor’s murals, it had looked and felt like an infringement on the space and of the dance actions going on there- frozen in time and color. With the screen in place, the now obscured slender slices of the murals seem barely to be missed- the dance goes on without them.

It was actually my continued meditation on and contemplation of these murals that served to initiate this ramble. For a couple weeks I have been thinking about constructing the beginning to the video document I have been working on about Tabor and the murals for a couple years now- not that I currently have a lot to show for it. It was after a recent trip to the coast that was described here a month or so ago that I came upon an idea for the beginning of the story I wanted to tell about the murals, which also involved an end and a beginning. The end had to do with the demise of an ancient civilization as described by James Churchward, an officer in the British Army who spent twelve years studying sacred tablets back in the late 1800’s that supposedly described the cataclysmic destruction of the continent of Mu. Having read parts of all five of Churchward’s books about the various aspects of his studies and findings about what he believed was the Pacific equivalent (and predecessor to) the Atlantis story, I can see where some of the influences that inspired Tabor to paint the murals have come from. And with 2012 being the auspicious time in the Mayan calendar that it is, regardless of how one feels about its end of time possibilities, it is a little bit eerie to think about the fifty thousand year old civilization of Mu being blown apart by subterranean gas belts and submerged in bits and pieces below the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

So the beginning I was imagining for my video journey into the story behind the murals seemed like it should take place somewhere that resembled the remains of the destruction of a continent, and what better place to find something like that than out on our coast. What I had in mind was a bit of a gamble, given that it is October. As it turned out, we lucked out on our three mile hike from Ozette Lake to Cape Alava, with the rain holding off right until we just started our final descent to the beach. As it was, we had also planned to do the entire nine mile triangle that included the three mile stretch along the beach and the three mile boardwalk ramble back to Ozette from Sand Point. With the rain starting to increase, we started the beach hike through slippery rocks and , at times, shin deep seaweed. I had checked the tide tables and we had arrived at low tide, but soon began to realize that we maybe should have gotten there an hour or so earlier. With the clouds and the rain and the gray, diffuse light, the monolithic outcroppings along the shoreline did take on the end of the earth appearance I was hoping for, but the slow going around fallen trees and beached "danger logs" began to create a sense of urgency to get down the beach as opposed to malingering in one spot for longer shots.

Having kind of winged this whole outing, we were never quite sure where we were along the route, and as we neared what appeared to be the end of the beach leg, we realized we somehow had missed a part of why we had done the walk- the petroglyphs had somehow gone unnoticed by us along the way. With the tide closing off some of the trails on the water side of the outcroppings, we sat down to have a late lunch at the south end of the trail. Standing up a short while later, we also came to realize that a nine mile hike with extra weight and gear maybe should have warranted a bit more training than we had done. In reviewing some of the footage I can see where I could have done something a little bit more and different. But it is a beginning, and a learning experience. We will see where it goes from here.