“It doesn’t matter the work — it matters that you work with care and hard and long and farther and keep learning. Always learn.” That’s my taxi driver speeding toward JFK today as I’m en route to Seattle. He’s telling me his story, as typical for these drives. I look forward to them. Saudi Arabia, hard years in Pakistan (but “most beautiful views”), and for now, New York. Here, he has become spiritual and is studying to be a pastor. But each stop, he’s taken in with open eyes and heart. How did he get here?
“There are some things you intersect with. You just know.”
Before flagging down that car, the news that Hillman Curtis passed away reached me. Hillman — generous filmmaker, teacher, designer, bicyclist, Brooklynite — has touched the lives of so many that our exchange is but one. Yet at one point, I am grateful to have shared some space with him. We talked one day of gifts. He revealed he had a gift to bring people together.
I’d always thought how lovely to be on the receiving end of those bringing-togethers, those serendipitous intersections. The playful, the curious, the driven, the learners, the humble, the magical — they all passed through the studio. And too, how lovely it was just to know and intersect with a person with such an enormous breadth of gifts.
The only other time I’ve been to Seattle was with Hillman and project team. Today, as I head there for the second time, I consider open hearts, open eyes, intersections, and the gifts we all have and those yet to come. Thank you, Hillman. And much love and condolences to his family.
