During my drink with Andrea she quoted Freud. Not in a pretentious way, she was just making a point. That’s a hard thing to pull off and just one reason why Andrea is the best.

I was so so very happy to meet up with her on my resent trip home to Halifax. It’s actually been years since we’ve seen each other and years more before that that we were really a part of each others’ lives. Many moons ago, after I had already graduated from art school (twice) it was Andrea who actually taught me about creativity. She championed my ideas, encouraged my development and physically shot my first short film. I would link to it but it is purposefully not on the internet. I will however link to Andrea’s first feature film because I will never stop loving it. She has done amazing work since and was even nominated for an Emmy, but it was seeing that first film and watching her realize it that inspired me to put heart into art. There is nothing ironic or cynical about what Andrea does. In the 90s that was new territory.

So it was no surprise to find that sitting across from her, she has not changed a bit. Her words of support for everything I’m doing and plan to do were warm and familiar and welcome. She really makes me want to work and that’s how we got onto Freud. He said "Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness." I guess Andrea then is the most human human I know. She found this hole in the system where she gets a partner without marriage and gets to mother but not be a mother and can bury herself in guilt free work on her own schedule without giving anything up. Kudos. As a result she gets to travel to Africa to document the injustices imposed upon young Kenyan women then return home to the bosom of family without missing a beat. Love and work. That Freud guy was on to something.