it begins with air - transcript for ifc

8/18/2019 It Begins With Air - Transcript for IFC

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It Begins With Air

Photo: F.G. / Creative Commons

by

Neil Sandell


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S ynopsis:

Neil Sandell is a man of a certain age, a man who loves to ride his racing bike. But as he gasps for air while cycling up a mountain road, he wonders,

why is he driving himself so hard? After all, he has recently retired to thesouth of France. He should be relaxing. But the upheaval of leaving his life behind in Canada has unsettled him. Though he is coy about his age withhis friends, he knows that time is catching up with him. And he is haunted by a memory of his father. He keeps pushing himself on the bike until oneday while struggling up a high mountain pass, he gives up. His failure weighs on him like a defeat. Now what does he do? As it turns out, theman who holds the answer lives on that very same mountain pass.

Credits:

Actors: Dominic GerardJulianne Hazlewood

Music: “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone (Felix Da Housecat’sHeavenly House Mix) from Verve Remixed 2

Excerpt: 24:26 / Total length: 34:15

Published on Sound Cloud: January 2016. Acquired by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: March 2016

(Broadcast date to be announced)

Glossary:

Type A personality = refers to personality traits linked to heart disease

driven = obsessed, compelled by oneself to do something

pug = a breed of dog, also known as “mops ” or “carlin ”

Col d’Eze = a high mountain pass near Nice, France


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Bicycle pump, rhythmic.

Neil:It begins with air. When you pump up the tires of a racing bike likethis beauty here, you want to make the tires rock hard. You push inso much air, that if you puncture…

Tire losing air.

… you know right away. And then you have to stop.

Traffic, hard breathing, cars pass.

When you’re climbing up the side of a mountain, you want air too. Your body screams stop. And your mind says….Well that’s the trick.It’s what your mind says. The one thing you never want to thinkabout is, why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself throughthis? Because, of course, you know the answer. You know.

Hard breathing, traffic. Mechanical breathing.

Dad.

Static.

Neil:I’m sitting at my desk at work – this is when I was around 32 -- andmy boss calls me up. And he says, “Neil, the police are on the phone.They… they want to talk to you.”

I don’t understand.

And they say, “You’re needed at home. You should get home as soonas you can.”

I don’t understand.

Static fades.

Neil:I’m Neil Sandell. Am I a pro cyclist? Are you kidding me? Well, maybe in my fantasies. But no, I’m just a guy of a certain age. A guy who puts on the gear. Cringes a little when I pass the mirror. Me inspandex. A guy who loves to ride a bike.


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Crowd noise.

Man:OK, OK everyone. Please take your seats. Please, take your seats.

Thank you. Mr. Sandell will take a few questions.

Neil:Can you -- [mic feedback] -- can you hear me? Alright. You there inthe back.

Chair scrapes.

Female reporter:Don’t you think you look ridiculous, I mean… for a man your age?

Neil:Excuse me?

Female reporter: Well, dressed in latex and all.

Neil:It’s spandex. Spandex. It’s not latex. Latex is…latex is whatcondoms are made out of. No. [laugh] What do you mean, “a manmy age ”?

Female reporter:How old are you, Neil?

Neil:No, the issue here is what I wear. That’s irrelevant.

Male reporter 1:Tell us the truth.

Female reporter:Come on. Why don’t you answer the question?

Neil: Are there any other questions about spandex?

Female reporter:Do you have a secret thing for latex?

Male reporter 2: Why not just call it what it is? A fetish.

Neil:I’m not answering. I’m out of here. This…this is over. I’m out ofhere.


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Female reporter:Neil, what are you hiding from?

Crowd fades.

Neil (narrating):So. How old am I? Well, let’s just say, I’m an analogue kind of guy.

Stopwatch. Ticking.

This stopwatch here? I used to use it every day on the job, the job being a radio journalist. A few years ago I found it in a drawer,gathering dust.

I was tossing out so much in my life back then. At home. At work.

But I kept the watch.

You know, I never missed a deadline in 30 years. When I made the big change in my life, I thought, “I’m leaving that all behind. Nomore deadlines. “

Ticking stops.

Well, it turns out I still have one hanging over me.

Ticking.

Thanks Dad.

Ticking becomes louder, then fades.

Neil (narrating): Yeah, the past.

Dogs snuffling and snorting.

Here’s my present…

Neil: (to wife) What’s happening?

Donna (wife):[laughing] The pugs are play bowing each other. Sniffing eachothers’ butts. Making noise, as normal. [laughs]

As you say, it’s the soundtrack of our life. And I’m grateful for it.

Dog snorting.


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Neil (narrating):My dogs. For them, it all begins with air, too. You know pugs?They’ve got those big sad eyes and smashed in faces? Well, that bigchange in my life? It was actually the dogs that pushed me. You see,since forever, Donna and I had dreamed of moving to the south ofFrance, to the city of Nice actually. That was the dream. But it wasalways, “France? Yeah. How about next year?”

The truth was, we’d settled into a comfortable life in Toronto. Safeand stale. Oh, we dreamed big. But we never did anything about it. And then one day, I got this email.

Time to call the first witness.

Neil:So, can you state who you are?

Jess:Jessica Low.

Neil:May I call you Jessica?

Jess:[laughs] Jess. That’s Jess to you. [laughs]

Neil (narrating):Jess, my best friend at work.

So one day I was at my desk checking my email, and there was thisone from Cunard.

Music: ex Cunard video.

Male voice (ex video):Cunard pioneered the transatlantic crossing to the New World.

Neil:I had to read it twice just to make sure. It was a once in a lifetimeoffer – a way of getting the pugs to France.

Music fades.

Jess:Do you want my impressions of the conversation?

Neil: Yeah… like, what did you think when I told you?


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Jess:I thought it was a bit crazy. [laugh] I thought it was – I thought it was actually quite magical because this seemed to be embracing therandomness of all of a sudden finding out that your dogs could go ona boat. And therefore that you could actually really move to France. And you know, even the fact that you happened to have dogs thatcan’t fly, right? That’s quite random. [laughs]. And had you had anyother kind of dog you actually could have booked a ticket and flownon an airplane. [laughs]

Dogs snorting, breathing.

Neil (narrating): Yeah, it’s way too risky to put pugs on an airplane. The air is just too

thin for them to breathe. So, you have to go by ship, if you’re going togo. But only one ship has kennels. Finding space for your dogs? It’slike winning the lottery. S omehow, our dogs’ names bubbled to thetop of this long waiting list.

We had a take it or leave it offer to make a winter crossing…in 10months time. Ten months to wind up our life in Canada.

Jess:There was so much suspense, right. Would you get the visas?

Would you get the health coverage? Would you be able to sell yourhouse? It wasn’t a guarantee that you were going to go. You really wore that stress on your face. But you also knew – I kept reminding you -- that there was this amazing light, literally, at the end of thetunnel.

Breathing. Bicycle noises.

Neil: What kept me going was this memory of riding in France near Nice,on the coastal roads. The sea is on one side – this incredibleturquoise colour. Mountains on the other side. Sun sparkling on the water. And that incredible high you get from working your bodyhard. I wanted more of that. If I got to go to France, that ride would be right outside my door…whenever I wanted.

That’s what kept me pushing forward when things were tough . Butthere was something else. You get to a certain age, you never know what can happen. You look around and you can see how the clockcan wind down on you, very suddenly. I could see what Jess was

going through.


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Breathing fades.

Neil:That was a tough year for you, I know …because of your mom. I was

pretty worried about you. I really was.

Jess:I was worried about me too. That winter I did not know whether myMom was going to live as a prisoner in her body completely locked in,unable to com municate, for years. And, and … you know we’d beencoping with her illness for three years. And it was just a terriblegrind. And uh…

Neil:I think at some level I was absorbing a lesson. Like, don’t leavethings too late. And I guess that was one of the things that kept memoving forward at a time when … when things were iffy.

Jess: And that was something that I really took from your decision. Uhm…It’s easy to say “live every day fully ”. It’s really hard to do. And myMom had so much left in her life to do. She got sick when she was 59.Uhm, and she went from being incredibly active and such a, such analive person. As soon as she got sick she became a patient. And shespent the last three years of her life as a patient.

And so, to tie it all together, it was incredibly inspiring to know that you and Donna were making the most out of every moment really. And that you aren’t being complacent. Because I think that it’s soeasy to get complacent and not think about how life can be better. And you did that. And you thought, how life can be better? And youtook a huge risk, and you went for it.

Neil: Well, thank you for that.

Hey, how old do you think I am? We’ve…actually, even though we’re , like, really close friends, we’ve never really talked about age,have we?

Jess:Mm n. No, I don’t think so. I’m go ing to guess, uh…fifty…six?Something like 57? How old are you?

Neil:I did actually tell Jess my age.


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Jess: What? Shut up. Sorry, that’s so rude. Really? You’re – that’s sosurprising to me. Huh. Wow. You seem a lot younger than you are.

Neil:Thing is, people always think I’m younger than I am. And I’ll take it.It’s flattering. But then again, my Dad looked a lot younger than he was too. Fat lot of good it did him.

Static.

Neil:I’m sitting at my desk at work – this is when I was around 32 -- andmy boss calls me up. And he says, “Neil, the police are on the phone.They… they want to talk to you.” Which is weird because I don’t workon crime stories.

And they say, “ Is this Neil Sandell? ”

“Yes”

“You’re needed at home. You should get home as soon as you can.”

I don’t understand. But I get in a cab, and when I get to my parents’house, there are two cop cars. And an officer greets me. “Are youNeil Sandell? Come through the front please.”

Which is strange. Something is very wrong because I always gothrough the kitchen. But no. “Come through the front.” And when Iget in the door, there ’s my M om. I give her a hug and she won’t letgo. And out of the corner of my eye I see my father sprawled on thekitchen floor. Dead. Dead of heart attack at 64. He did not drink.He did not smoke. He was healthy all his life. And now he’s dead at64? What the hell sense does that make?

That was a long time ago. Am I over it? I’m over it. [13:03]

Unrolling packing tape.

Neil: Yeah. That’s a lie. Sometimes, though, you just need to pack thosefeelings in a box, seal it up, keep on moving ahead. Like thosemonths getting ready to leave Canada. If I’d let any second thoughtscreep in, I would have lost my nerve.

Jess: There was a while there where you had big bags under your

eyes, and you looked like you hadn’t slept in weeks.


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Packing tape.

Neil:There was so much to throw away. Now some stuff – it was easy totrash. But other stuff – well, how do you decide?

I found old calendars with names of people I was meeting, the women I was dating at the time. You know I looked at those namesand I couldn’t even remember one of them.

I had two boxes of journalism trophies. Was it vain to take them withme?

And then there was the stuff I would never throw away.

A photo of my Dad in the Navy, somewhere on the North Atlanticduring the war. God he looked pale.

And then, years later, this medal he won for catching a record sizefish. There’s a kind of heft to this medal. It feels great in your hands. Solid. Round. Something permanent.

Packing tape.

Neil:Those boxes. So much personal history in those boxes. It was like I was curating my own life, and there was a … finality about it. And for what? I don’t have kids. Who would care about this stuff when I wasgone? And yet I wasn’t ready to throw it away either.

Packing tape.

Greg:That sense that your life is containable is frightening.

Neil:My friend, Greg Kelly.

Greg: I’m not talking about an apprehension or realization. I mean thesensation…because it’s almost physical. It is physical. So thisgoodbye is kind of a total goodbye. It isn’t simply saying, you know,I’ll be back at some point and I hope everything’s okay. Thatproduces its own set of anx ieties. There’s a permanency to doing this.


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Greg: So when you were parsing through some of your possessions andletting go of them what you’re acknowledging is that a chapter of yourlife is dead. It is over.

We’re squeamish about death anyhow in the West, at least. But thatkind of …. well, as it were, a kind of dress rehearsal for an obituary.That sort of thing is only possible when you really pick up stakes andmove. Especially when a career is ending.

Neil: - yeah -

Greg:The opposite of that kind of loss isn’t a kind of gain. It’s rather asense of possibility. And that can be almost giddy. Almostintoxicating.

Music: Cunard video.

Male voice (ex video): Queen Mary 2 embarks on round trip voyages from New York …

Neil:The day we left for France was “Wow. We’d finally made it.”

Male voice:…Everyone who has sailed with Cunard shares a memorableexperience with generations of discerning travellers.

Crescendo. Dogs snorting. Light wind

Neil:That night, the ship glided into the Hudson River. We stood on our balcony, shivering…watching as the skyline of New York receded into

the distance. The lights on shore winking out one by one. And then, we were at sea. It was just us now. And I felt … weightless. I felt as ifI’d slipped the bonds of gravity, the treadmill of the familiar, the weight of the past, the gravity of who I was. Or so I thought.

Wind fades. Breathing, cycling, traffic.

Neil (diary):… I’m about 350 metres, maybe 400 metres above Nice. And it’squite a climb. It’s a half hour climb. [sniff] I find it reallychallenging. Now I’m chilling off. I’m just going to cover up a bit.


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Traffic. Zipper.

Neil: Almost no cyclists on the road right now.

The view is really extraordinary. On one side you have this broad valley sweeping towards the sea with mountains receding in the background. Reminds me a little bit of California. And then you justturn right around and you see the Alp s. And they’ve got sn ow onthem. And the air is crisp. And it smells good. And it’s fresh. It’sone of the reasons I cycle. I mean it’s hard . It ’s exhausting. It hurtssometimes. But you do it for the rewards. It’s peaceful up here. It’sso frigging peaceful.

Traffic fades.

Neil (narrating):It started off so well. But then …

Ice cube tray.

Neil (diary):Ice. Ice, ice, ice. And my ice bag. Screw the lid on, and find a placeto sit down.

Footsteps.

I think the place to start is my body. I just - I’m feeling old. I like tothink of myself as young but I’m feeling aches and pains. I keephaving setbacks. My body is telling me “don’t go as hard”. My headis telling me “keep pushing.” But every time I have one of thesesetbacks, and it sets me back three weeks, a month, I feel like I’mstarting back to square one.

About a week ago, I couldn’t even walk. I mean, it was that bad.

The, the --- my knees were swollen up. So, it’s all about getting older.It’s all about not having to giv e up yet another thing.

I used to be able to run. I can’t run anymore. I used to play baseball.I haven’t done that in years. Cycling is what I have left. But I can’tdo it in pain. It’s just not worth it.

Footsteps.

Ice on left knee. Oof, God.


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Crowd noise.

Female reporter:Neil, what are you hiding from? Hey, Mr. Sandell. Neil. Can we do

an interview? It won’t take long .

Neil: You again?

Female reporter: Oh come on. What are you worried about. It won’t take long. Here,follow me. Let’s, let’s go into this room.

Door opens, closes. Light switch.

Neil:Uh, what’s with all the baggage in here?

Female reporter: Let’s just cut to the chase, why don’t we? Why are you so driven?

Neil:Driven?

Female reporter: Well, you could be relaxing, taking life easy. But there you are, out

every day, cycling as if your life depended on it. It’s a little nuts don’t you think?

Neil:That’s a little harsh. Are we almost done he re?

Female reporter: Hey, this is your fantasy.

Neil:Not a fantasy.

Female reporter: Okay, your…what are you calling this? Your…m eta-whatever.

Neil: Are we almost done?

Female reporter: Will you answer the question or not? Why are you pushing yourselfso hard?

Neil:My Dad.


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Female reporter: Yeah, the heart attack. Any theories why that happened?

Neil:

Well, he had this Type A personality. You know? He was a guy who was quick to anger. Never satisfied. Liked to control things. He wasa guy who was…. what’s the word?

Female reporter: Driven?

Neil: Yeah. Yeah, he was driven.

Female reporter:

Yeah, like you.Neil:No, not like —

Female reporter:-- yeah, we’re done.

Room ambience. Dogs.

Neil:So Donna. Do you think I’m driven?

Donna: Yes. Y ou’re a driven person actually. When you do anything, youpursue it intensively.

Neil:See, I…I’ve been thinking about my father , right? And I worry insome ways that I’ve become him when I didn’t want to.

Donna:But what do you mean by that?

Neil: Well, his Type A personality.

Donna: You’ve got it. You really do. I mean I think that you have, uh…I thinkcontrolled…you know, learned to control your anger over the years …probably better than he did… even though I never met him.


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Donna:I just suspect that’s true. And you are much healthier than yourfather was in terms of your, you know, diet and exercise. So you’renot necessarily going to end up in the same place he was. In fact I -- you know -- I don’t really worry about that. You know, I think you’reon track to do a lot better than your dad did.

Neil:So the driven thing. What can I do about that, do you think?

Donna:Have a personality transplant? [laughs] I just think it’s who you are.

Room ambience fades.

Neil (narrating): So here’s something you learn when you pull uproots. No matter how much you leave behind, you take yourself with you. You see, you unclutter your life. Your mind gets quiet. Andthen you hear that clock ticking in the background.

Was I driven? Of course I was driven. But I couldn’t see another way.

One day, on a whim, I decided to climb up the Col d’Eze. It’s a highmountain pass that sta rts at the edge of Nice. The Col d’Eze is steep.

Very steep. Breathing. Bicycle.Clock.

Neil: Oh…oh…oh God. Uh --

Clock stops.

Silence.

[24:25]

it begins with air - transcript for ifc

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