See if you can follow me on this. You will have to use your imagination.

I saw a film the other day called Another Earth. Have you seen it? (It’s just awesome. Awesome. See it as soon as you can if you have not.) I couldn’t stop thinking about it and still can’t.

While I can’t tell you too much without giving away some important plot points, I can tell you that the story revolves around a discovery that there is a duplicate planet earth. The concept, further explored in the film, is that there is a replica of each human living on that other earth. So, there are two earths and each has the same set of humans. There is much more going on in the story but for the purposes of my note to you here today, this is all I will say.

The idea of another earth and a duplicate of each person living on that earth sat heavily with me. And I began to wonder …

What if there was another MAV?

Would her life be like mine? Or would she have chosen the other path all of those times I had two paths in front of me?

Would she make the same mistakes and have the same nagging neuroses?

Would the same things upset or inspire her?

And, perhaps most poignantly for me, what would she say to me if we met? Would she tell me that she understands that there are little things that worry me or hold me back? Would she tell me the things she thinks I need to change? Would she just know me better than anyone else and perhaps say nothing at all? Or would she tell me that at the very heart of it all I am a good person and I just need to keep on trying?

Another MAV. Crazy! And comforting. You really need to watch the film when you can!

: : :

All photographs of myself are film outtakes from the new 3191 Quarterly, Issue No. 10.

—MAV