Farewell to the gold

It wasn’t too long ago when I was running through the Brisbane airport terminal like a maniac, trying to catch a connecting flight to Christchurch, New Zealand. Had I missed this particular flight — which I was told I most certainly would shortly before landing — I’d be on a nine hour bus to Sydney, waiting to catch another one going to the South Island of New Zealand the following day. Ain’t nobody has time for that.

The door to the aircraft was shut three quarters before the flight attendant saw me, she smiled, “I see you now, stop running!”

The following week was uneventful. I stayed at the crumbling B&B “Famous Grouse Hotel” while enduring the nightly Karaoke night with the town folks scream on the top of their lungs. The wi-fi needs a new password every 6 hours, and I had to get it from the owner. So often I stayed up observing every crack on the ceiling until making my way down to the restaurant for an English breakfast. “How was the Karaoke night?” I’d ask the owner. “Rubbish as always.” He’d reply. I’d then take my cameras miles to to the filming location because there’s only one Uber driver in town. I remember the room vividly, especially the bright red flowery wallpaper above my bed, even though I’ve lost all the photos.

Then we’re off to the races. Five years, thirty countries, half a million miles above the clouds, countless hotel room keycards, and many long walks along unknown streets later, I’M DONE…  Finished. Spent. And it’s only fitting I’m recalling this after a short walk in the morning fog in the city of Santa Clara, across from the Levi Stadium, where the 49ers play, or so the driver told me.

I had thought of this day for years— How would I feel about saying goodbye to all the people I love (at least for now) in all the beautiful cities I met them? Would I be a cheapskate now that I can’t buy airport cocktails with my company card? (The answer is a resounding yes.) The electric energy going through my spine whenever I step into a new country, talking a stranger about where to eat — will that be gone as well?

Will this be gone as well?

It was a lonely job. Brutal. Takes a toll on your body. Carrying the equipment, racing through airports, city streets, making and breaking the cameras and lighting whenever and wherever, instantly forgetting my hotel room number and which city I just traveled from because I was moving too fast. Sleeping on the plane and sometimes on an airport bench. Tomorrow begins at six in the morning. Always.

It’s also the best job in the world. THE best. One week you’re driving through the Dead Sea heading to a hot spring in Ein Gedi, next day you’re in Bangkok riding on a motorcycle holding onto a stranger for dear life. I write when I see a table. I read when I can’t sleep. I got in the habit of speaking to strangers— about what to see and where to eat, about the war that defines the country — There’s almost always a war that happened not too long ago. About where Im from and where I’m going.

I am very fortunate to have met many video professionals all over the world, stay in touch with a lot of them, and even get to call each other friends. They are in San Francisco, Santiago, Chile, Phnom Penn, Delhi, Barcelona, Rome, Bangkok, Nice, France, Prague… Places I’ve never dreamed of working in. For someone who never care for traveling, I was given a reason to do so. A mission to pack two cameras into a roller bag and create video content in the uttermost part of the world. I’d squeeze a new trip to an old one — Agra on top of Delhi, Cambodia on top of Thailand, Japan on top of Hong Kong, Peru over Chile, Rome over L’Aquila, and  many more I can’t remember. Meeting old friends over drinks, meeting new friends over dinner. The cycle repeats.

Until now.

I wouldn’t trade these years for anything. I was exactly where I needed to be in my late 20s, even when I was thrown out of a taxi in India, or pulling an all-nighter editing alone in Barcelona. I have absolutely no regret OTHER THAN eating at a Mexican restaurant in Paris and found the waitress sitting on her boyfriend and wondering when my food went—  but that one was on me. I should’ve known better.

Now here I am, doing my last business trip in San Francisco, meeting old friends for dinner and drinks every night until I have to wake up at 6AM and catch the flight home.

I can’t wait to see my son…

I want to write more, never really give up on it, but I want to get better. Rewriting my lousy screenplays at the airport bar does get old.

I want to create. And the new job awaits, waiting for me to prove myself yet again.

One day I shall go back to being a road warrior. I just know it. I want to see Africa, visit my friends there. That’ll be a long epic trip. But I’m good for now. I’ll take some time to process the places I’ve been. I want to go beyond cities, to the places people talk about but never actually visit. I want to bring my son with me to all the new places, until he outgrows us and moves on one day…

At the end of July, 2016, just one week after I wrapped the Christchurch shoot, I found myself on a bus headed to Franz Josef Glazier with a car full of Japanese tourists. I was staring at the stars in the back of the car, re-listening to an old playlist while the tour guy Om told us stories of the old gold mines in the South Island that cuts a whole in the middle of the earth. He sang the song “Farewell to the Gold” for a few times as we make our ways to Queenstown:

Shotover river, your gold it is waning

It's weeks since the colour I've seen

But it's no use just sitting and Lady Luck blaming

So I'll pack up and make the break clean

Farewell to the gold that never I found

Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound

For it's only when dreaming that I see you gleaming

Down in the dark, deep underground

It's nearly two years since I left my old mother

For adventure and gold by the pound

With Jimmy the prospector - he was another

For the hills of Otago was bound

We worked the Cardrona's dry valley all over

Old Jimmy Williams and me

But they were panning good dirt on the winding Shotover

So we headed down there just to see

We sluiced and we cradled for day after day

Making hardly enough to get by

Til a terrible flood swept poor Jimmy away

During six stormy days in July

These years have a profound impact on me as a man, as an adult, as a human… And I will let it simmer until curiosity brings me to a new place in the not too distant future.

Nov. 3rd. 2021.