January 26, 2000 – Wednesday – 9:30 a.m.

Yesterday this area received its largest snowfall in recorded history.  It’s only about five inches, and I’ve seen close to two feet in Banner Elk, but it’s fun to watch this whole region freak out.  They just don’t know what to do with it.  Everything is closed.

Marie and I spent the day together.  We watched Anne of Green Gables, played in the snow, and I took some pictures of her.  We had lunch and dinner together, and spent hours just holding each other and affirming each other.

Yesterday was a perfect day.  It seems I’ve waited through so many other days just to get to that one.

It has been exactly three months since Marie and I drove down to Currituck.  Three perfect months of a beautiful friendship.  I just reread all my journal entries from the past three months.  God is amazing.  I feel so loved by Marie and by Jesus.  I know so much beauty because of this little trio.

Three months from now it will be April 26th.  Spring Break will have just ended and the semester will nearly be over.

Wow!

January 24, 2000 – Monday – 1:35 p.m.

Okay, let me just slow down enough to write in my journal.

Marie just stopped by on her way to class.  We are having dinner together in four hours, a special soup from her mother.  Marie is my best friend ever.  My beautiful love.  The woman I want to spend every day of my life with.  I’ve walked down many different paths and have had other relationships with girls, but they have all guided me here to these days in Virginia Beach with her.

We go to church together now and it has pulled me away from Parkway Temple, where I attended for the past 18 months.  We have tried Bethel Christian Fellowship, but I don’t think that is for us, so we’re going to try Avalon Hills next Sunday.

I am amazed and overwhelmed every day by the love of both Marie and Jesus.

This past Friday we drove around the Bacon’s Castle area of southeast Virginia.  There were so many little village type towns out there.  On February 11th we are driving down to Wilmington, NC, where I hope to move with her in a year and a half’s time.  Her birthday is in July and inside I’m praying that that is when I will ask her to marry me.

She is the sweetest and grandest of all women.  She views life through the eyes of a poet.  Her faith and relationship with Jesus is so true and steadfast.  She is a warrior and a little girl.  She is faithful and true.  She is beyond anything I could have dreamed to share my life with.  She listens to me, holds me, comforts me, prays for me, and loves me.

She amazes me.

Thank you Jesus.

January 23, 2000 – Sunday – 7:15 a.m.

It snowed last night.  The second snowfall in the past week.  And now I realize it has been a week since I’ve written.  It feels like a day.  Wow.

Things are good.  God is blessing me.  The Dang! footage looks great.  We will begin editing next week.  It also looks like there is a good chance that at least one of my screenplays will be selected for a funded production this summer.

Last night the roots of Marie and my’s relationship ran deeper.  It’s hard to write about the two of us because we have our own little book we started together.  We tell each other we love each other now.  And it is a very painful and scary thing; almost to the point that it is comforting.

We visited both sets of Grandparents, she even met my Dad last Sunday.  He acted like the total antisocial butthole that he is.  It was difficult, but it is also nice dealing with all this buried junk inside me with Marie by my side.  I’m learning to see it all through her eyes.

The purity outside reminds me of God’s fresh grace.

January 16, 2000 – Sunday – 9:05 a.m.

Marie and I had a perfect Friday!  She was completely surprised by Martin Guerre at the Kennedy Center in D.C.  And last night we just held each other and had a delightful conversation.

We are going to church together at Bethel Christian Fellowship in Pungo this morning, then we’re visiting my grandparents north of Williamsburg.  She will meet my father and I pray God helps us today.

I just recently read what C. S. Lewis had to say about prayer.  I feel often that my prayers are answered, just never the prayers I speak, only the prayers I live.

Why is life, which I often see is so hard and hurting for others, absolutely wonderful for me?  Are all things filtered through Christ before they get to me?  Is life easy now because it will be super difficult later?  I don’t know what’s going on Lord, but I know I am doing nothing to deserve it.  All I know is I see you.  I see you moving.  And you are beautiful!

January 13, 2000 – Thursday – 6:00 p.m.

Marie and I walked the trials of Back Bay this afternoon.  There is such beauty in the flatness surrounding the water.

We are visiting parks in the northeastern areas of Virginia tomorrow.  We had decided this a while back, but I discovered through a newspaper that was accidentally placed under my door, that the new musical by the guys that wrote Les Miserables, Martin Guerre, was showing in Washington D.C. just farther north than where we planned to go. So, I got us two tickets and told her that I have a surprise for her.  She has no clue what we are doing.

We had a little Bible study and prayer time las night.  It was wonderful.  God is guiding us.

Our journal we are keeping together is the most beautiful thing in the world.  We exchange it back and forth every day.

Sweet Marie.

Oh God, your love is amazing!

January 11, 2000 – Tuesday – 11:53 p.m.

My one and only full-blooded brother turns 25 in six days.  My how are lives are controlled by numbers.  But I feel they are important to God.  I want them to be important to me as well.

Marie and I have started a book together.  It is a journal, a collection, a piece of ourselves made with pen and paper.  No one is meant to read it but us.  Yet I wonder if it will be discovered one day.

Perhaps the truest art is the undiscovered art.  And I will know no other true art except my own.

I’ve learned that I’ve become very bored very quickly when I write about the unimportant things in my journal.  You know, just what I do and not who I am.  When I read back in my earlier books, all I see are my immaturities.  So Lord, help these times in my journal bring me closer to you and to myself.

Help me to spell out my soul.  Guide me in the discovery of what you have created inside me.  Lord, I fear I may not know who I am.  Erase the conceit.  Recreate me.  Join me to you first.  Then to Marie.

Recreate us together.

Everything good has its time and place.

Days with Dan, Allen, Vince, and Curtis in McAllister are no more.

Days with Marie are just beginning.

Spend time with me Lord.

January 10, 2000 – Monday – 4:30 p.m.

Classes start today, but I don’t have one until tomorrow.  But let me talk about last week, the week of my first non-silent short film.  With a crew of about 25 and a cast of 13 featured roles (not counting extras), I attempted to tell a story very similar to my own.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday went very smoothly.  Thursday at the church was a bit rough, but we got all our shots.  Friday at the beach was freezing cold, and Saturday at the beach took a bit of effort and creativity to make it rain.

Despite the cop that came and the table we lost in the ocean, we got all our shots.  Everyone told me that it was a very stress free week.  I believe I directed and communicated well.  I learned to storyboard and I stuck to them.  Perhaps that is why everything was so relaxing, it was all planned out in advance.

In less than two weeks I have my public reading for Silhouette and The Tape that Binds.  I need to cast and rehearse those readers.

Marie’s sister Jenny is in town.  We went to see Anna and the King yesterday and tonight I’m going over for dinner.  Marie is blessing me unlike any other and I feel the love of God coming through her to me.

Life with her is wonderful.

January 7, 2000 – Friday – 10:38 a.m.

Wow, the days go by pretty fast when you are making a movie.  But they’ve gone by wonderfully though.  Overall it was a week full of 10 hour days and no major issues.  Eddie has come and gone.  My beautiful Marie has returned and is blessing me like crazy.  She is the sweetest thing!  God is so good!

I love making movies.  That’s all there is to it.  Thank you Lord for this opportunity.  Marie just called; she is on her way over.  She gave me six New Jersey postcards with beautiful letters to me on the back.

Hopefully soon I’ll find the time to write about my first big directing experience in great detail.  I know I will forever cherish these days.

 

January 1, 2000 – Saturday – 2:28 p.m.

During first sunrise of the year 2000, I stood on the shores of the Outer Banks in North Carolina overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  The fireworks at midnight were nice as well, but I wished Marie could have been with me for both epic moments.  I wished I could feel the warmth of her near me and see both of these beautiful types of lights reflect off her face.

Well, as it turns out, the world did not end and everything works fine.  All that Y2K nonsense for nothing.

Production week for my short film begins tomorrow.  We’ll shoot for a straight six days.  Uh, is my film the first film being shot in the new millennium?  The 16mm film stock was expensive, but we’re all ready to go.

Marie arrives on Tuesday and classes begin on Monday the 10th.

It is the year 2000.

And I have been redeemed!