Love Is an Action

Not just a feeling

Julie and I met doing summer stock, summer of 98. One night after a show I told her to be ready at 5:30am, I wanted to take her for an early morning ride on the motorcycle. The destination was a couple of miles away on the other side of Winona Lake where we watched a bunch of hot air balloons launch into the sky as the sun came up. It was romantic and awe-inspiring, and then the motorcycle wouldn’t start. We walked the whole way back on the side of the road, me pushing the bike, Julie carrying the breakfast picnic supplies. It was a great time.

By the next summer we were officially dating. One night I went to visit her where she was staying on that same lake. We took a walk out on a nearby dock to look at the stars. It was so clear that the sky above and the radio towers in the distance were reflected on the surface of the water. It felt like you were standing on a platform at the edge of deep space, an ocean of stars above and below, the spires of an alien city flashing red somewhere out there in the cosmos. It was perfect. On the walk back I cut my bare foot on a jagged piece of metal on the dock and bled profusely all the way back to her room. She helped clean the wound and bandaged me up.

That same summer we went to a county fair on one of our days off. I dragged her on every rickety ride, the kind held together with rusty screws and the grace of God. By the time we got to The Gravitron Julie wasn’t feeling so good. She told me to go ahead and ride it, that she’d sit and wait for me on the grass, so I did. When I got off it was clear she was in bad shape. We were living together at that point and on the ride back to the house I had to pull over so she could throw up. With teary eyes, hair messed up, a little drool on her chin, she apologized in this sad, small voice, saying, “I’m sorry I ruined the fair.” I laughed so hard I cried and we’ve repeated that line many times since, whenever one of us threw an unexpected wrench into our plans.

That date at the fair was how I found out that Julie gets bad motion sickness. She didn’t tell me because she knew how much I loved going on the rides at the fair. What Julie has learned about me since then is that I have a famously weak stomach. I throw up at the drop of a hat. I can’t watch the JACKASS movies or STAND BY ME, or THE SANDLOT, without running out of the room when the vomiting starts. When I go to the dentist I have to squeeze my eyes wide open like some kind of psychopath in order to take my mind off of my gag reflex. But I didn’t have any problem when she was leaning out of the car, throwing up on the edge of a cornfield in the middle of Indiana.

These stories have been on my mind because we attended Julie’s niece Ashleigh’s wedding on a boat in Newport Beach over the weekend. Ashleigh’s brother Grant performed the ceremony and he started off by telling us how Ashleigh met her (now) husband, Sebastian. By telling us their love story, which included some of the obstacles they overcame before finally getting together, he invested the attendees even more deeply into the ritual that we were now part of.

Saturday morning, before the wedding, I was picking up breakfast and I overheard a snippet of a conversation between two women just as one of them said, “Because love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action.”

That alerted me to how many little actions were in all of those stories about Ashleigh and Sebastian. There’s an initial attraction, there’s all that stuff that’s reliant on chemistry. But to really build the bond of love each partner has to perform and receive a series of actions. And to maintain that bond you have to keep doing them. Without those consistent actions the surface stuff isn’t sustainable.

Just like in movies and television.

One of the pitfalls when we write romantic relationships is that we expect the reader or the audience to feel a connection between the characters because we feel it. We rely on snappy banter or a collection of quirks, common interests, or the chemistry of the actors. It makes total sense to us. But how often have you watched a movie or a TV series and thought, “Why does this character even LIKE this person, let alone love them?” The answer is, “Because the writer is telling you they do.” But they didn’t show you the math to create that deeper feeling inside you.

Hopefully I gave you a bit of math that communicates how Julie and I built those early bonds of love. Julie knew she gets motion sickness but she wanted me to have fun at the fair so she got on those death traps. I used to throw up at the smell of Play-Doh (likely still would) but I knew I had to get over my weak stomach in order to care for her when she got sick. Maybe if you saw those scenes in succession, if you saw each of us striving to get over our own obstacles for the other person, knowing what was at stake for us, it would endear us to you.

Action is character, character is destiny. Also true for relationships. How do your characters show their love for each other? How do they show up for the other person? Or not? What do they need from each other and where do those needs come from? How does all of that affect the trajectory of that relationship? Can you chart that course of actions backwards and forwards?

These actions can be the grand gestures of Hallmark movies or they can simple and small. I remember doing a marathon edit session with a couple of friends once and we’d been at it for hours. It’s late at night, we’re all exhausted, but Tony is the one who is glued to the chair, doing the bulk of the hard work on Final Cut. Our friend Scott Puckett walks in, places a candy bar next to Tony’s mousepad, and walks away. Tony didn’t ask for a candy bar, Scott didn’t ask him if he wanted a candy bary, he just wanted to help his friend. I remember that one little gesture twenty years later.

My mom came to visit over the weekend to watch Ellie while we were at the wedding. She and Julie’s parents have been staying with me all week. I cook for them, they pitch in to clean up. They put up with Ellie’s moods and love her like she was my human daughter. On a daily basis we all perform these actions that show each other we care.

On any normal week I probably wouldn’t be thinking about all of these things through this particular prism. It’s just what we do. It’s built into our operating system. But weddings open you up in ways you don’t expect. They give you a heightened awareness of love in all of its forms. Like the best man and maid of honor who stand up and give speeches about their friends, even though they may be flooded with anxiety. The father-of-the-bride who gives a speech that honors the village that helped raise his kids, the step-parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who pitched in along the way.

By the way, Julie is on the national tour of 1776. They opened this past week in Philadelphia and the company was gracious enough to give her one day off, on Saturday, to attend the wedding. She flew from Philly to LAX on Saturday morning and went to the wedding on the boat from 6-10. The boat docked in Newport Beach at 10pm, Julie’s red eye back to Philly was scheduled for 11:50.

The moment the boat pulled in we hopped over the railing onto the dock and raced back to my car. I drove it like I stole it up the 405 while Julie changed out of her dress into travel clothes in the backseat. We got her there just in time and she actually made the flight, something I was ninety-nine per cent sure she was not going to do when we got on the boat at 6pm. When I got back to the hotel my mom was curled up with Ellie. They had fallen asleep together in my room.

Stuff That Inspired Me Recently

There’s a ton of great insight and inspiration in these two podcast interviews with Steven Spielberg and Sarah Polley. Toward the end of the WTF episode Sarah tells an extraordinary story about the evolution of one of the most powerful moments in her movie, WOMEN TALKING. It’s a testament to how being ego free and open to good ideas from anywhere can lead you to some genuine magic.

Mr. Spielberg has a great story about why he finally decided to tell his semi-autobiographical story in THE FABLEMANS that I think is worth a listen for any writer/filmmaker/storyteller.

I absolutely loved Maron’s new special. It’s deeply human and emotionally edgy in a way that the current wave of anti-woke, aren’t-I-cheeky hacks will never reach.

Lastly, I saw someone post this making-of doc about ATHENA, one of the best movies of 2022.

Smartless with Steven Spielberg

WTF with Sarah Polley

Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark

Athena: The Making Of

Pre-Project Financial Checklist

I included a link to this in my last newsletter but just in case you didn’t click through to check it out, I wanted to include this excellent resource again this week. It’s from my brother-in-law Greg who started a financial planning business that specializes in writers and directors. Link below the JPGs, Greg’s website info is on the bottom!

Pre-Project Checklist

Have a great weekend!