Story Frame 40 – Flow & Flowing

Morning journal April 2000 … Some days are just more tentative than others. I don’t really feel my feet are securely underneath me all the time.

Feeling lonely and at loose ends yesterday, I momentarily considered calling Martin to see if I could come over to the house, crawl into bed with him and just be held. The thought lasted only a moment or two before I realized how hungry I was. So I went downstairs and made dinner instead.

Morning journal May 2000 … I had a vivid dream about Martin last night. We were working on location – me, along with everyone else from the documentary workshop. When Martin tried to put him arms around me, I asked him not to touch me. I woke up, feeling strange…

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, a book by Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was published in 1990, but it didn’t pop up on my radar until ten years later.

In his book, Csikszentmihalyi describes a state of consciousness he calls ‘flow’ during which people experience deep enjoyment and creativity, a state in which positive experiences are unleashed and sustained. In order to achieve it, he said, we just needed to order the information that enters our consciousness.

Easier said than done, I thought.

Having often experienced that lovely state of flow when everything seemed open and positive and creative throughout the years of working at the documentary workshop, I understood what he was talking about. But how, I wondered, could I get back into that state now that I was no longer in that atmosphere?

I read about Flow on a Friday afternoon.

The following day was Saturday, our once-a-week shopping spree day when the kids and I piled into our old Volvo and set off to see what useful and necessary treasures we could find at yard sales.

That particular morning, we drove down along the river to Mount Vernon to check out a community yard sale in a friend’s neighborhood of contemporary modern homes built of wood and glass, surrounded by gardens and green spaces. With houses like these, I thought, they should have good stuff.

And they did.

We spent nearly an hour browsing, during which time I found a pair of brand new shoes for Leif as well as art supplies for both kids. On our way back to the car, I noticed a couple of books on a blanket with some other needs-another-home items on the front lawn of a house I hadn’t noticed before. I hesitated a moment. We were all kind of hungry and wanted to get back home. But then I decided to walk over and take a look. And there – one of four books for sale – was a paperback copy of Flow, just waiting for me to notice it. For a dollar, it was mine.

Two weeks after I found that copy of Flow, I was asked to be a judge for the CINE Golden Eagles Television Awards. I spent an enjoyable morning at American University, my parents’ alma mater, watching two films on economic development and four on sports. Yep, that’s me, an expert in both fields! Fortunately, lunch was included, offsetting the cost of the gas needed to drive there and back.

Three weeks after finding Flow, with my finances getting precariously meager, I got a call offering me a two-day location scout ($600) in Washington DC for an upcoming PBS pledge special. That was followed by a callback for an audition to be considered as the host of a pilot television travel show, which was followed by a request to send in my resume for consideration as a producer for a pilot series on female spies.

I also responded to a query from a production company looking for a typical teenager’s room for a production shoot, offering Zoë’s room which, though small, was cute and bursting with personality. We’d painted the walls bright colors and using a poster from the television show, FRIENDS, as our jumping off point, covered the walls with a montage of candid photographs of Zoë and her friends. I told her I’d split the location fee with her, if there was one, and she was quite pleased by the thought of the potential income.

Four weeks after finding a copy of Flow, I got a call-back about a job interview with the BBC. I was quite surprised to hear from them after the initial telephone interview with a headhunter who seemed to think I didn’t have enough “British TV experience.” I didn’t have any at all, of course.

And then, just five weeks after finding Flow, I got a surprise phone call from Dr. Braddock, the man whose foundation had funded American Byzantine. It was a call that would change my life, but not in the way I might have anticipated.

Coming up next … Story Frame 41 – Two Phone Calls & A Face

[photo: Flow Restaurant in Porto, Portugal, 2023]