Residual

Today, I received a residual check from an episode of One Life to Live that I directed. Apparently, the episode re-ran on cable somewhere, and as its director, I was compensated for the rerun.
 
The check won't change my life--it is just about enough to buy a sandwich for lunch. Nonetheless, when I opened it, I had an odd rush of emotions. It was a reminder of what I went through to take the step from AD to Director--the learning and the waiting for the director assignment calendar and the hoping that a show split into parts would turn out to be mine. The marking scenes and working with actors and telling a story in my own way. The taking producer notes and negotiating shots with cameramen and re-blocking a scene to make it work better.
 
It was a reminder of places and people and ambitions and neuroses about ambitions. Of a format that was part of my being for a very long time.
 
And it was a reminder that, while what's going on now might be satisfying, there is always more than just now. There is what was, and there is what will be, far too much to live just in the "now."
 
It has been years since I directed the show that resulted in this residual check, but opening the envelope took me back as if it were yesterday. As if when I opened the envelope, a whole world came flooding out of it. I won't be using it to buy a sandwich. It will probably just go into the bank--in the ups and downs of a freelance world, a little perk from the past can come in handy.
 
For today, it was more than enough to be treated to all that the envelope brought back.