I am so excited to break this news finally: Vasant and I are going to Rome to study Italian cinema, film a documentary and our first *serious* film.

We were accepted into a program our major was offering for Cinema Studies students to live in Rome, study Italian cinema and produce a documentary while there. We’ve been attempting to get this worked out for the last four months with not only the acceptance part of the program, but also funding, grants, scholarships, etc. We haven’t wanted to jinx this by talking about it, because even now, having been accepted and all, going to Rome to film still seems surreal.

Surreal or not, however, yesterday we received the funds, finalized our travel plans and therefore can officially announce that we’re headed to Rome. We’re being put up in apartments overlooking Rome’s famous open-air market, the Campo de’ Fiori and studying films in the nearby Palazzo Pio. We’ll be there for five weeks from the end of August through the end of September, right before (a day before) starting our final quarter at the University back here in Seattle. The program will be part study of Italian cinema, part production course, and a whole lot of walking every day through the city, examining Rome and how filmmakers frame it within Italian cinema and how we as filmmakers think about framing space within narrative.

On our downtime, Vasant and I will be filming part of our first serious film. I say serious, because Vasant and I try to knock out one or two short films between the two of us a month, to practice all the elements of our craft that we can. But those films aren’t anything but practice and experimentation. This film that we’ll be shooting in Rome is our first serious film. It’s in pre-production right now, and it won’t actually be wrapped until next March or April when we shoot the final scenes, which, for script reasons, can’t be shot until next Spring. I am so excited to announce details for that, but for right now, I can’t. I can just say that it’s coming down the pipe, and to be thinking good thoughts for us. We’ll have part of the script in place for the Rome sequence by the end of August, which we plan to shoot at the end of September once we’ve found the right locations in the city.

Words cannot describe how excited and TERRIFIED I am. We take our Italian final for summer quarter on the 21st of August and get on a plane two days later, land in Rome, start schooling, filming a documentary and our film, and that action pretty much doesn’t stop until the course is over on the 24th of September. Then we fly home on the 27th, after we’ve checked out of our apartments, and start our final quarter at the UW on the 29th. It’s going to be intense.

The jet-lag, the culture shock and the immense work we have to do while soaking in the grandeur of the Eternal City is daunting. Of course, it is also thrilling. When Vasant and I got married, we did not have a college education, just a few paltry credits from the local community college taken out of a state of academic ennui. But after we began dating, we realized we wanted to make movies together. Once we got married, we realized the only way that we, personally, could do this and not feel like we were risking our futures to pursue this dream was to get an education. First an undergrad, then move onto a grad school that would position us to get into the industry. If it doesn’t work out, our educations will allow us to fall back on teaching, which both of us would love to do anyway, whether we find success in our fields or not. However, if I didn’t think we were going to be successful, we wouldn’t be pursuing this. I am always pragmatic though, and becoming filmmakers via great educations is, for us together and as individuals, the smartest thing we can do.

What’s incredible is that five years ago this summer we were getting married, with only a foggy sense of what we wanted to accomplish together. We knew we wanted to tell stories together but we had no idea what that would look like or how it would happen. In the last five years, we’ve gotten through four years of college, we’re two and a half quarters away from both of us receiving our double majors, Vasant’s built a place for us with my father, I’ve almost finished my first novel and we’re in pre-production on our first film. And trust me, I don’t say any of this to brag. It’s emotionally healthy for me to take the time, as I write a post about Rome, to write this out for myself.

There have been plenty of people who, throughout the last four years, have been kind enough to point out how stupid they think two married people in their mid to late twenties going back for an undergrad is. Apparently (wonder why we weren’t told this in marital counseling) once you get married, you are stuck in whatever career you’re in when you get married, with room for the occasional climb to the next ladder rung. You have to buy a house and get pregnant within your first five years and if you don’t, you’re obviously not doing “marriage” right. I find this hilarious. Right now. You know, at this particular moment while I write this post out to Michael Giacchino’s excellent Star Trek soundtrack.

I haven’t always found it hilarious when people think they’re being subtle but they really aren’t, telling us that they don’t respect what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, where we’re headed, where we’re living and so on. In fact, it’s been really difficult to discover just how unsupportive people have been because we’re not living the traditional suburban married life. At times, even though we have a good plan, and it’s right for us, it’s been really hard to believe in ourselves when so many people have laughed at two married people going back to get a four year education, living with my parents while Vasant finished our apartment, and well, pursuing storytelling.

Trust me, as a pragmatic, I’m all too aware of the supposedly dying publishing industry and the myriad of people who want to make movies and the terrifyingly high percentage of people who never realize that dream. So when I say going to Rome is surreal, it’s not just because I’ve never been there before. When I list all the things Vasant and I have been doing for the last five years in a positive light, I’m not showing off. It’s surreal to both of us to articulate just how much we’ve accomplished together in five years because, sadly, we get to hear from so many people, way more often than we would like, that we’re not doing anything worthwhile.

But it’s just not true.

Again, maybe the Star Trek soundtrack is giving me the courage to write this. Maybe it’s because I finally bought the tickets to Rome last night. Maybe it’s because writing all these accomplishments out in this post reinforces the positive truth that’s so hard to swallow: Despite the many aspects of our non-traditional life (according to married suburban norms), Vasant and I have accomplished so much together in the first five years of our marriage. We’re not just “excellent roommates” as Steve Carrell put it in his most recent movie, Date Night. We are adventurers together. We’re writing partners. Study buddies. Collaborators in a grand dream. And forgive me if this post seems emotionally indulgent, but I realized halfway down as the nice things became harder to write, that I needed to articulate just how much I love what we’re doing.

I believe in what we’re doing and dammit, we’re going to be successful. Going to Rome the year I finish my novel, we start our film AND graduate from University just seems to be a fitting and an amazing way to commemorate what we’ve done so far together and with the support of our family and friends (the ones who have chosen to stick by us on our non-conformist journey). It is surreal and it’s an amazing opportunity. But I guess at the heart of this new development, it’s simply and most importantly, affirmation.

* An aside for people like us:

For anyone out there who’s dreaming, who’s doing something non-conformist, or merely entertaining the idea- don’t let other people’s censure get you down. Affirmation moments may come everyday for some people, or for us, it’s coming five years into our journey. But it doesn’t negate how right something is. And “rightness” doesn’t negate how hard something may be.

The thing you may be meant for may be the hardest thing you’ve ever committed to in your life, and there will be plenty of months, if not years, when it doesn’t seem possible, when it seems like nothing is working out. The harder it feels, the more momentous it will be when you get to those moments of affirmation.

This moment of affirmation may only be a pit stop for us, but I’m going to savor it. It’s going to be years more before we even get a toehold, let alone a firm footing in what we want to do. But we love telling stories. Our hearts, our minds, our bodies ache to tell stories. It consumes every hour of every day.

If anyone out there who is reading this loves something like that, find the wisest way of securing a means of doing it. Be pragmatic, and yet boundless in your imagination, and let pragmatism and idealism duke it out until there’s a middle ground. But once you find that path, which may take a while to find, commit to it. No matter how hard it may be. Surround yourself with people who get you and if there is no one around you like that… watch a Pixar documentary on any of their movies, but most especially, The Pixar Story on the Wall*E bonus features. Even if you don’t want to make movies, like we do. I kid you not. Watching the story about how many rejections were dealt to the gang at Pixar early on- specifically following their story from its roots in the seventies until it coalesces as the animation studio we know today in the mid-nineties, you’ll feel uplifted.

I know this addendum to my post may seem silly, but if there is anything we’re looking forward to as we get more successful, it’s encouraging other people to dream. We need that encouragement, and when we get it, it feels like a responsibility to turn around and do the same for others. I am aware, or rather the cynic in me is aware, of how painfully mushy this part of the post is, but really - it’s hard to take hold of an intangible. It takes planning, commitment, encouragement and endurance. And all of those things can be hard to find.

Just know, if anyone who is reading this feeling akin to what I’m describing: hold on through the rough seasons. Moments of affirmation may feel like they’re far off, but if you hold on, and stay positive, focus on what you love no matter how hard it is to pursue, you’ll get there. Until one day, hopefully, those moments of affirmation give way to realizations of the dream. And that… that is what we working hard to take hold of.