I sit once again window side looking out on a scene that would be featured in any Hallmark movie. The snow from two nights ago has been carved onto the sides of the streets, now enhancing the color of the red bricks that have built up this small American town. Every now and then, the whirrs of the latte wands will break up the consistent chatter of local regulars. There’s a familiarity with everyone here. There’s something tangible through their nods and their eye contact. They are the characters in the movie. They fit this town. They were cast perfectly for the film. You’d watch the movie and believe they belonged. I’d be one who attempted to be cast as an extra, only to be turned down. “We like you and you do have a certain look. We just don’t feel like you belong in this particular movie. We will keep your resume on file and be sure to call you once the right story comes along!” That was the casting call in Tokyo. That was the casting call in Seattle. And that is the casting call in Hallmark Move 32, shot in the quaint town of Bixby, Oklahoma.

If someone asked me to paint my life on a canvas for them- they’d find a man sitting outside a cafe staring into the abyss. He’d probably live somewhere above the sound of ceramics colliding with the sink and afternoon chatter that meshed together into a soothing ambience. It would be his idea of an ocean sound; something to both wake up to and go to sleep that he could rely upon like the tides coming in and going out. He’d have a one bedroom “flat,” and they’d call it a flat because he’d probably live in London. Or maybe he’d return to Tokyo and it would a similar setting, just more neon. Handing over the canvas to the person who asked, if they knew me even in the slightest, they’d nod and say “Yep, that’s you.” The details wouldn’t really matter really. They’d just know that from that one picture, they could paint the rest if they so wished. Perhaps the little white card just underneath the canvas would say something like, “Man in cafe in cityscape 2012 Oil.” Say I was to bet on my life being an image for anyone to identify me with, I’d push in my life sayings- the whole $4.12. The point being, a portrait of my life so easily identifiable with who I was and where I was going could not be so starkly different than the picture that is today. I’m not saying we sit within a painting our whole lives, but if we did, I’d embarrassingly had been living in the wrong one.