2016 opens

I guess one thing I can say for sure is this: I’m still surprised and interested in my life and in what comes my way, in how I cope and understand things, and in what I do. I’ve been bored, but not often. There was that temp job I had in the summer of 81 or 82, at that insurance company on Broadway at Maple, but even then I made the best of it, locking myself off in the corner bathroom stall and writing. An employee there, a woman I intuitively knew I liked, said to me one day, approvingly yet laconic, you’re different. It hurt me, but only because I knew she was saying that we wouldn’t be friends.
 
In the 1995 movie Georgia, with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s slow-burn performance as Sadie Flood, the brother-in-law observes to his wife, Sadie's sister, clearly seeing who Flood is as she fights to stay afloat in her life, she’s the bravest person I know. The name Sadie Flood stayed with me, its ring as true as its weight, and when it came time, some years later, to give a name to a company I was starting I considered Sadie Wade, spiking the original inspiration with an optimistic twist. I eventually went with ad lib, wanting to give a good nod to those who’ve so deeply helped me throughout my life, and who call me Lib.
 
Today, I have a new company called zoetrope, a nod to my family on my father’s side, the only one I have now and where my name Zoe comes down to me from.  The word zoe is the Greek root word meaning life, and trope, the Greek root word meaning turning—and this is largely what I’m up to with zoetrope.
 
Like I said, I’m rarely bored. And when I am, it’s not long that I find a corner where I can make things.
 
Maybe the next company will be Sadie Wades. Who knows. For now, zoetrope works—me working with life turning.

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