What Gets Your Juices Flowing?

Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head, and just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed, nothin’ seems to fit. Those raindrops are fallin’ on my head, they keep fallin’….But there’s one thing I know, the blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me. It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me.

BJ Thomas

The Sundance Kids

What do you think about when you hear the words “Sundance Film Festival?” Probably (if you think about it at all) Robert Redford, lots of movie stars, Park City winter wonderland, and a vibrant night life. 

Jane and I have been going to Sundance for a dozen years and we’ve always attended with great planning and anticipation. We’ve rarely encountered big name movie stars. But we have seen many great movies starring unknown actors…and we’ve sat through some real stinkers by major stars. We’ve come to expect fewer and fewer available parking spaces—but more extensive and reliable shuttle schedules.  

Oh, did I mention the lines? Lines, lines, and more lines (unless you have a pass…which is useless if your friend doesn’t have one and has to stand in the never-know-if-you-get-in line). By the way, that’s me with a pass and Jane with a wait list ticket that didn’t make the cut!  And to make matters worst, the restaurants are usually so packed that we’re forced to fend for ourselves at home. 

So what’s our real attraction to this festival? We both love films, but we’re clearly not in the “biz.” And we don’t go gaga over catching a glimpse of the latest Tomkat or Bradgalina-wannabe couple. What we do enjoy, pure and simple, is the creative energy that envelops us.  

Indeed, before we retired and wrote Changing Lanes, both Jane and I heavily relied on the left side of our brains—we had to be logical, towing the company line even when it was uncomfortable, often getting down and dirty to make every last dollar count when we preferred to execute a more elegant strategy. There was little opportunity to be creative. 

So, when Jane proposed this project while we were attending a Sundance Film Festival in January of 2004, we sat down and fleshed out our desires and expectations with relish. We both immediately felt the rush associated with creating something from whole cloth. From that point on, the festival has meant two things to us: seeing extraordinary creative attempts translated into film, and using that inventive energy to inform our book writing efforts. 

Two years later, we had completed our interviews—re-writing each story five or six times and putting the book’s organization through a meat grinder at least a dozen times—and we were just beginning to comprehend that writing is the easy part! It’s much harder to actually get your book published!! In the recesses of my mind, I’m sure I had appreciation for the angst writers have experienced through time immemorial and the criticism they must have been willing to endure. But that didn’t make it any easier. 

We didn’t have a writers’ workshop available to us; we had “Sundance.” It became our little retreat and it enhanced the joy of the journey. And that journey continues today. Case in point: on a sardine-packed flight to Salt Lake City, Jane sat next to a woman who had already reinvented herself in early midlife and was complaining that her husband, at 56, was in desperate need of a lane change! 

My sister recently called after reading our book and said we were missing an important story: a financial broker who left a successful career in his 40’s, went back to school, and became a kindergarten teacher! How brave is that?! 

Jane and I enjoy listening to the stories of reinvention, renewal, and rebirth. We recently shared with one another the other day how we both automatically go into “interview mode” when we learn we are face-to-face with an actual lane changer.  

I find myself more in the moment now…I’m more attuned to the people I meet, always curious as to “their story.” That’s why we created the ability on this website for you to share your story.

Sharing your story may help someone else get his or her juices flowing and may be the start of yet another remarkable lane change.

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