The thing I remember most vividly about the first months of running Cyan is watching movies, an endless stream of them. It was the first time I gave myself permission to do that – to enjoy films as something worthwhile in and of themselves, rather than as occasional and temporary escapes from real work.

I had always loved movies, had always watched as many as I could. But with Cyan just getting underway, I felt I hadn’t seen nearly enough. There were countless classics I’d somehow missed, countless writers, actors and directors whose work I’d yet to see.

So, in the beginning, I watched a film a day. Every day. But, as the work of running Cyan took increasing spans of my waking time, I started to skip days. And then more days. Until, nearly three years later, juggling both Cyan and Long Tail, I realized that in one recent six week stretch I’d watched just three films, all at home on DVD.

So, shamed by that knowledge, I leapt back into movie watching. I returned to the nearby theaters, watching like it’s my job. Because, in fact, it is.

. . .

What I rediscovered, what I’d somehow forgotten, is the thing that made me jump blindly into the film industry in the first place: I’m never happier than when leaving the theater after a good film. Excited, like something big is coming, yet oddly calm. Full to bursting and vaguely hollow, all at once.

I like to watch the people leaving with me, bubbling with excitement or soberly and silently contemplating. Each with one foot removed from the world of their own lives, planted firmly still inside the world of the film instead.

Looking across the crowd, it’s clear that, for ninety minutes, we’ve been transported to somewhere else entirely. And now, slowly returning, full of new things, it will take us a while to come all the way back.