When I finally decided to divorce, I drew up a plan… And oh, it was glorious!

But to hear my ex-husband tell it to our mutual friends, the scene became slightly more sinister: picture me wearing a bowler hat, twirling my mustache, and laughing maniacally like a mad scientist about to take over the world!

Muahahaha!

He was certain I was out to get him, especially after my own mother (who had some justified anger issues) would engage in what seemed like an all-out war.

But the truth was far less movie-glamorous.

What was the plan?

To have a slow and peaceful withdrawal from each other’s lives in an attempt to keep our families and the church together for as long as we possibly could, even if the marriage was irrevocably broken. Because in the end, there were people who depended on us—including our two small children—and they were my priority. Regardless of my anger, I wanted to protect their hearts and minds above all else.

Let me explain…

My parents are Cuban missionaries that still lead a small Hispanic church in Miami. My ex was the music minister, so when I got married, I naturally fell into the role of worship and drama leader. We had created a small theater troupe in the church, and oh, the marvelous things we produced! Immersive Vacation Bible Schools, full-length community plays that packed 400 people into our 100-seat church over a weekend run.

In February of 2016, about a year before my husband and I separated, the troupe had become silent and shell-shocked after one of our members had suddenly passed away. He was an incredible human being who lost his battle with cancer at a very young age. Both his family—who made up the majority of that troupe—and my ex-husband would never fully recover.

So logically, I could understand how our friend’s death and my ex-husband’s own cancer scare affected his midlife crisis, resulting in the betrayals that would eventually kill our marriage.

Yes, logically I could understand all the plot twists that ended our story. But emotionally…

Well, I’m not going to enter into specifics because some of those details are not mine to share with the world, but if I can paint you a picture of the aftermath, just imagine me locked in one of the church’s bathrooms—huddled in the corner, hugging my legs and crying hysterically.

There was never a bowler hat or mustache or maniacal laughter. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint, and there were plenty of words and actions born out of anger that I would come to regret.

But the intention had been honorable, even if the “plan” would turn out to be the most naive thing I have ever believed… And I was a die-hard Disney fan growing up with dreams of becoming an Imagineer, so interpret that as you may.

Because despite my worst fears, the church did eventually split up and, at one point, even close its doors after almost 40 years of serving the community. Thankfully, my parents were able to reopen it shortly after in a new location, though the Sunday services included a much smaller crowd.

I also decided to take a step back and away from my ex-husband’s family. I had counted them as part of my own for almost two decades, but my biological family had become my lifeline, so it just felt right to let him have his own. And though I would always miss being a more active participant in my nieces’ and nephews’ lives, I do have to admit that, perhaps… it was just easier letting go.

Maybe that’s why Disney’s Meet the Robinsons—a film I both despise and adore—had such an unexpected impact on my life.

Let me be clear, as a mother, I couldn’t get past the fact that one of the aunts was a puppet, and with grown children, no less! It felt like a violation of a story universe that had otherwise believable tropes (if you consider a giant octopus butler somewhat acceptable).

I might have hated the movie had it not been for the moment Cornelius and Lewis walked into their laboratory… And oh, I was in love! And love can make us forgive just about anything.

Because THAT was my kind of office! A Laboratory for Stories, for light experiments and other impossible things. A place for all my favorite types of madness. “Keep moving forward” indeed!

Then the credits rolled, and something else hit me… it was Rob Thomas’ song “Little Wonders.”

That song became the anthem to my life.

“Let it go
Let it roll right off your shoulder
Don’t you know?
The hardest part is over
Let it in
Let your clarity define you
In the end
We will only just remember how it feels.”

In the months that followed, I bought a three-person bunk bed and squeezed into my parents’ guest bedroom with two small chihuahuas and my two children—we had two outside cats, at the time, that actually seemed happy to explore my parents’ larger, lakeside backyard.

I also rigged up one of those night projectors that cast the earth, moon, and stars on the ceiling, and I admit that going to sleep so close to my kids—holding on to each of their hands while watching the moon glide past the earth—was rather wonderful. They would stay up until late laughing and chatting between them, and I’d pretend to be upset about their chatter so they’d get to sleep because they had school the next day.

But now I wish that I’d just let them talk.

Oh, how I loved falling asleep hearing their laughter! They were preteens then, and I didn’t understand how precious and rare those moments would become or just how much time had been wasted by the fighting. Because time flew quickly after that, and in a few short years my babies would disappear and grow up into… teenagers. And if you’re a parent to one of those, well, nothing else needs to be said.

In any case, “Little Wonders” became part of a post-divorce playlist that I would put on loop in the car, letting the feelings wash over me.

“Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
These small hours
Still remain.”

It was almost like a need or an emotional “fix” that I’d return to often… until the day my daughter called me out from the backseat.

“Stop it, Mom,” she ordered.

“What?” I asked, lost in the feelings.

“Stop playing those songs. You get all… weird. I can hear it in your voice.”

It was then that I realized just how comforting it had been to wallow in my melancholy. There was indeed a strange pleasure in licking your own wounds.

So I stopped listening to the playlist, thinking it a step forward in my “recovery.” And then real tragedy struck just a few months later, about a year before COVID hit… Well, if you read my first blog post (The Night I Killed Her), then you know that things spiraled for the worse. At which point, let me tell you…

Melancholy would have been a welcome friend in the company of Despair.

“Let it slide
Let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine
‘Til you feel it all around you
And I don’t mind
If it’s me you need to turn to
We’ll get by
It’s the heart that really matters in the end.”

I do so enjoy watching films and TV to relax—or, as I call it, "doing market research”—and the other night I was in the mood for some retro Disney films, like the old Robin Hood (“Every town has its ups and downs”) and, of course, Meet the Robinsons.

Rewatching it once more made me realize something new…

In today’s world, where AI can recreate human speech and emotions—sometimes with devastating effects on children and adults who are suffering from mental health issues—these small hours, these “little wonders” could truly be the lifelines that save us.

Because a machine can never feel melancholy or understand the complex circumstances that can lead a human being to actually long for it or even choose it over any other emotion—to feel it so deeply that it transforms sadness into a thing of poetic beauty.

These glorious, contradicting imperfections are what make us human—the one thing that AI can never truly imitate or take away. For the day they do… well, let’s just say we’ll have bigger issues than whether they can write a film script or a book.

But then again… Reality is a story, and that too may be just another “twist and turn of fate.”

Like the ending of this story.

Remember that all-out war between my mother and ex-husband? Well, time is indeed a great diplomat because today my ex is back at my parents’ church, helping my father—who's going through his own cancer battle—and my mother is delighted by his presence.

Oh, the irony.

“All of my regret
Will wash away somehow
But I cannot forget
The way I feel right now.”

As for me? Well…

My father is slowly dying.

….

Maybe that’s the real reason for this blog.

Because writing is a catharsis for me. It’s how I make sense of the senseless.

It’s how I keep moving forward.

So yeah, sure, it can be a little weird to see my ex every Sunday, but I love my father more, so as long as he is happy… “We’ll get by. It’s the heart that really matters in the end.”

“Time falls away
But these small hours
These little wonders
Still remain.”

-G

I had finished the post under a different title, “The Song that Saved Us,” and upon the first few readings, it felt finished… and yet.

And yet.

I’ve learned to listen to those “and yets,” because after a few days of distance, I finally realized what was missing; hence, the shift in title and perspective.

Nonetheless, for those of you interested in AI filmmaking (or even filmmaking in general), I’ll take the opportunity to explain how I created “The Old Moon and Sea” video loop.

1. First, I uploaded a reference picture showing the color scheme and ambiance to ChatGPT, asking it to create it as a cinematic shot. Got a few options and used the one I liked best. I usually prefer Midjourney since its use of cinematic lighting is phenomenal, but I also tend to rotate which software I pay for every month to try and save money. And this month… they weren’t “it.” ;)

2. Experimented with Runway ML and Kling AI directly via image-to-video, again, giving it specific prompts about style, camera framing, etc.

3. Once I had a good idea of which prompts worked best, I began capturing start and end frames from my favorite outputs in order to tie together the longer sections and especially for the loop. Filmmaking with AI is akin to animation, regardless of the final style. You have to tie together a chain of smaller sections using start/end frames.

4. I also tried playing with Sumo AI for the music but opted for more detailed music prompts and generating longer Kling AI videos instead. This gave me about 10 to 15 seconds of options that were closer in style to each other, which makes it easier to mix. Plus, Kling gave me outputs that were closer to the prompts and, thus, my overall vision.

5. And finally, I edited the video and mixed the audio in CapCut, licensing additional audio effects through their subscriber library. Why CapCut? Because I haven’t touched Adobe Premiere and DaVinci in years, and I just wanted something I could do quickly. Is it limited? Yes. Yes, it is. But it also has a great library and cool shortcuts that, with a little creativity, can work just fine for personal projects.

Stay tuned for my new site reveal (also coming soon) and the post that almost was but now finally is.

As always, keep storytelling!

Hugs,

-G

It was early 2020, and I was crying. We were all sick of quarantine, and I was sitting outside, on my parents' backyard swing, watching the moonlight reflect on the water of their small lake. On the phone was a friend whose own business was suffering—and yet, there I was, begging her for a job she couldn’t offer, both of us desperate for cash.

I hung up the phone, devastated. I finally understood what “rock bottom” meant, looking around the hole I’d fallen into. But I wasn’t alone in that dark, deep place. Oh, no… she was there. And I was certain I hated her.

Over a year and a half earlier, in September of 2018, we’d lost my best friend's daughter a few days shy of her 20th birthday. I had gotten married a month before she was born and then divorced a few months before she died. A strange coincidence perhaps, but with her death something else was buried—the security I once felt thinking that my family was divinely protected and nothing could ever harm it.

So there I was, divorced and back at my parents' place with two kids, a pair of cats, two dogs, and questioning everything about my life. But the end of 2019 was deceptive. I was working as a digital writer at Telemundo, had the car of my dreams, and was even house shopping—with a shiny mortgage pre-approval up my sleeve.

Then all hell broke loose on a global scale.

And because when it rains, it pours, I also injured my rotator cuff while doing Pilates (thank you, midlife), which meant that I’d spend the next few months quarantined at home, in pain. I gained close to 40 pounds and lost that job midway through the year anyway, which led to that night, sitting on the swing by the lake.

I could hear her gloating.

“Look at you… you’re such a failure!” She laughed wickedly. “You don’t have what it takes, Gloria. You’re so old… and fat.” She came closer then, lowering her voice. “No wonder he didn’t love you.”

But something strange happens when you’ve hit that bottom. Evil Gloria’s words couldn’t hurt me anymore, because I couldn’t stoop any lower. There was just nowhere left to go… but up.

Then, someone else stirred inside. The echo of a superheroine I once knew—the one who’d always come to the rescue and remind me of who I truly was inside.

Reality is a story, she reminded me. And that’s when I was hit by an epiphany.

Because if reality is a story, and I was a storyteller… by God, I should be able to conjure up the life of my fucking dreams!

But first, I had to kill Evil Gloria—or, at the very least, muzzle her—as I finally faced the story I had been telling myself about my own life. About what I was capable of and what I could accomplish—I had to kill all those “limiting beliefs” that had somehow sneaked into my own psyche. And because I am a storyteller, I did it… through story.

Captain Fearless, the film script, was born from that struggle. I even cast Evil Gloria in the role of Evil Maia—and she was fabulous in it! All I had to do was sit down and let her rip. “So, tell me more…” I insisted, allowing her toxicity to flow. But there was catharsis in watching her get pummeled on paper by a superhero—and not just any superhero. A mom, like me, struggling to live out the irregular rhythms of her own life.

Ridding myself of those beliefs didn’t happen overnight, and there are still a few more I have to tackle. As the end of 2020 rolled around, incredible opportunities started to open up—opportunities I would have never been confident enough to take on before—leading to the work that would eventually bring me my very first Emmy.

And that was the start of a whole new life.

Well, I still haven’t been able to move out, and my dad’s now sick, but happily ever after is just a myth.

In this chapter at least, I am the hero of my own story… and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

-G