I Am Not A Shark

Just a reminder to myself...

I am not a shark.

I can stop at any time, and my lungs will continue to fill with air. Unlike the shark, I don’t have to keep moving to force water over my gills to extract oxygen. I don’t have gills because I am not a shark. I will not suffocate and die if I stop moving. This is something I must remind myself of from time to time, or else I risk a reckoning.

My most recent reckoning came last December, when I spent a weekend filming a music video out in Joshua Tree, a place where sharks have never swum. When I booked the trip months prior, I was inspired and invigorated. I had all these ideas for using the desert landscape as a backdrop. I truly don’t love the desert, but it was the right call for the video’s aesthetic. By the time the weekend approached, long days had turned to long weeks, eventually forgetting what month they belonged to, and the blur had me bathing in some kind of apathy. While these video trips have become part vacation, part film project for me, I was wishing it was more of the latter.

Adriana was there with me. The deal is the same every trip—I spend day one casually plotting out shots while spending time with Adriana and our dogs. That evening we’ll make dinner and spend time together. On day two, she takes care of the dogs while I shoot all day. That first night of our arrival, we sat in the hot tub drinking spiked eggnog and admiring the orange glow of the desert, and I felt my body asking for rest. It begged to sleep in that water—to simply stay in one place long enough to make an imprint.

The next day, I fumbled through my shot list. I chased the light and adjusted my aperture accordingly. Adriana cared for the dogs, and I occasionally called on her to help me frame a shot. I got it done, though I wish I’d spent more time simply being horizontal out there. I squeezed whatever juice I had left in 2024 into a little cup and sealed it up and drove back to LA.

And now I’m here. It’s Friday, but I released the video yesterday. I did not get this letter out in time to coincide with the release because I have COVID and my head feels like it’s in a vice. My limbs feel like glass, and my cough is deep and guttural. But I’m finally horizontal, lying here trying to remind myself…

I am not a shark.