An Explanation

Recently I've gone missing in many ways--socially, sometimes mentally and emotionally, and certainly bloggily. My absence from UrbanSquirrelGirl can be justified, and I'm ready to explain.

A while back, I had this crazy idea for a documentary following the lives of Abraham Lincoln impersonators--those guys who don the stovepipe hats and march in parades or appear in classrooms. I kept the thought to myself, turning it around in my head, until I went on vacation to Colorado.

And now, a warning about mountains.

Mountains will make you say crazy things. Staring at their impossible peaks, you may begin to feel inspired. Perhaps you will scrawl poetry on a napkin or strum a guitar as you prepare to compose the next great American song. Careful what you say and do in these moments under the influence of mountains. I was not careful, and one little utterance has spawned months of hard work and mental/emotional/physical exhaustion. Here's how it played out.

John and I were driving in the early morning on the last Sunday in August. We were making our way through the dew in the Wet Mountain Valley with the Sangre de Cristos mountains rising up above us, cutting the morning sky open from a haze to a bright blue. It was beautiful. As John drove, I thought about the greatness of these mountains, of our country (the Democratic National Convention had been going on in Denver too, so that probably didn't help), and our country's history. The Lincoln idea sprung forth in my mind, and then, looking back up at the mountains, I lost all inhibition.

"I have this idea for a movie, and I want to make it!" I cried out to John, who was probably somewhat surprised. I then explained the details of my idea at great length and concluded with, "No matter what I say, you can't let me forget this idea or leave it behind. I think I'll regret it if I don't pursue this."

A week or so later, John met with the director of a non-profit film company in Chicago for a film of his own that he'd been working on. I was probably lazily eating ice cream on the couch or something when John mentioned that he had brought my film thoughts up to this guy and that he liked the idea and now wanted to meet me and discuss the possibility of making the film.

"What?!" I sputtered.

"You said not to let you forget this idea, remember?" John gently reminded me.

I cursed him a bit but decided it was time to put down the pint of Ben and Jerry's and get moving with this idea. And the moving has not really stopped since.

I've continued to dedicate myself to my day job and have worked on the film on nights, weekends and vacation days. The non-profit funding the film has given a great deal of support to it, and it's truly a fantastic group effort with a great team working on it. I feel extremely blessed and excited that this film is happening, but I kept it to myself for a long time for fear of totally jinxing it or embarrassing myself should it be some awesome failure.

But I've given up on that secrecy and fear of failure crap and am now basically sharing this film production with everyone who reads my blog (hey all three of you!) and anyone else who hadn't yet heard. I also wanted to apologize to any of those three blog readers and to my blog itself for ignoring UrbanSquirrelGirl for so long. I'm still in the thick of production, so I still won't be very good about updating for a while. I'll try to post links and updates about the film as I have them, starting soon.

Lots of Lincoln love,
Caitlin