smagik

There is no film work in Albuquerque right now and so I find myself back on the road, working on a low budget movie in southern NM, shooting nights. This is exactly the type of job I would normally roll my eyes at, turn down, and let some young newbie in need of days and connections do. But, here we are.

They put me up in a La Quinta off of I-10, in between a Cracker Barrel and a Wal Mart. As I get ready to head to work each evening, I notice that an array of vehicles begin to arrive in the parking lot and park for the night; cars full of people’s lives, backseats filled with clothing, dishes, papers, bikes. They aren’t staying in the hotel but rather looking for a quiet parking lot in which to sleep for the night. Nomad Land. I complain about my hotel room, not as nice as the one I lived in on Park Avenue for a month while working in NYC nor as nice as the Radisson in Monterrey where I stayed for two months while working on Big Little Lies. I complain and yet I am so fortunate. I have never once not had a place to sleep at night.

When I add it up, I have lived in hotels for years of my life. There have been shitty ones, like the one with the ripped shower curtain and the rotary phone on the wall next to the toilet in Las Vegas, NM, and beautiful ones like the one in Spetstis, Greece, steps from the sea. I have a little hotel room kit I always pack; yoga mat, coffee mug, utensils, lavender spray air freshener, flip flops.

Yesterday I had a day off. An evening really, as I didn’t get to bed until 8am and didn’t wake until 3 in the afternoon. I googled coffee near me and ended up in the sweet village of Mesilla, just over I-10 from where I am staying. It is a beautiful historic village full of shops, restaurants, and a historic theater where I watched the movie Palestine 36 which I had been wanting to see.

This kind of random exploration of places I wouldn’t normally go is the thing I miss most about working on location for films. Some of my happiest memories are of waking up on a weekend and wandering through places like the West Side Market in Cleveland while working on The Avengers, or of finding a great cafe near my hotel in Belgrade, Serbia, where I would go and read when working on The Glass Onion.

When I first pulled into Las Cruces and had only seen the area around my hotel all I could think was Ugh, what a shithole. But, as with anywhere, once you get away from the interstate crossroads and into the actual community, there are little gems to be found. Yesterday included a drag brunch at Grounded coffee shop, followed by used book shopping at COAS, and then thrifting at Savers. It was quite enjoyable. And now, I am up, packed, and killing time before heading to work for the night.

And tomorrow, home.