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00:04:35Trans pó logr -"
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00:04:48Trans ROI corpo absent vivacity
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00:05:00I'm losing my sight.
00:05:05There's no cure.
00:05:26Who am I without the visual world?
00:05:51This is the Living with Vision Loss class.
00:05:54We'll go into how the vision loss has changed your life.
00:05:59Getting it out is the first step towards getting back in control of our lives.
00:06:06I think the hardest part is the friends and family who call and say,
00:06:11How's your vision? How are you doing? Are you getting better?
00:06:13What are you doing to get it better?
00:06:15It's not going to get better. It doesn't go that way.
00:06:19My biggest problem is dealing with the overwhelming degree of loss.
00:06:25I don't like knowing that I'll never see my kids again.
00:06:31I was the one I used to take care of the whole family.
00:06:34Now I was the other end of it. People had to take care of me.
00:06:39I like to give. I don't like to receive.
00:06:42My identity is so wrapped up in being a film editor and it's all visual.
00:06:47And then I started to lose my sight and it was this overwhelming feeling.
00:06:56It just, all of a sudden I just felt like I was drowning.
00:07:09The center of my vision is beginning to disappear.
00:07:14And it feels like I take my peripheral vision and move it over the middle to cover the hole.
00:07:32Objects in front of me appear and disappear as I fill in the blanks.
00:07:40People's faces are starting to look like a Picasso.
00:07:46And the Picasso face is so unnerving that I look away.
00:07:53And as soon as I look away, they look away.
00:07:58And I've lost them.
00:08:04And this loss feels so familiar to me.
00:08:10Let's go.
00:08:24Let me bring the water in the window.
00:08:40I grew up in this very suburban house I was the eldest of five and everyone
00:08:48called me bunny and I felt like kids I feel like they were like my kids on some
00:08:55level when my dad came home from work he would walk over to the piano sit down
00:09:03and begin to play
00:09:13there was this freedom in him and we all would go bananas and run around the
00:09:21house and scream and yell and my mother loved it she would laugh and embrace the
00:09:28craziness music was bringing in so much joy
00:09:40when we went outside it really was different I was painfully shy but not when
00:09:49I skated I would like come into my body and feel the music that was in our house
00:09:56I would feel so free and alive
00:10:11Johnny and Janie are not yet quite grown into manhood and womanhood they are in
00:10:17between and the in between period is known as puberty this name is used to
00:10:23describe the physical growth and change that bring sexual maturity as I was
00:10:29growing up mom never talked to me about puberty or sex or anything like that
00:10:42it's 1964
00:10:46no birth control
00:10:48for unmarried women
00:10:50and abortion
00:10:52is illegal
00:11:14high school
00:11:18a boy
00:11:33I just thought everything was natural I didn't feel bad until oh my god
00:11:40you're pregnant it's like it just seemed like the whole sky fell down then
00:11:53and then my father drove me to grandma's and said you're going to be staying with her for a while
00:12:14I'd always wanted mom and dad to be proud of me and here they had to hide me away
00:12:20I felt such shame for bringing this upon my family
00:12:31I felt so alone waiting for grandma to come home from work
00:12:40and then all of a sudden my parents picked me up
00:13:09I have a little bit of amnesia about that place
00:13:11I have a little bit of amnesia about that place
00:13:14I have a little bit of amnesia about that place
00:13:15but when I went in there
00:13:17I was actually so relieved to be at a place with other girls who were like myself
00:13:29I made friends with this girl who could play piano
00:13:33so we would sneak out and go to the rec room and she would play these amazing things that
00:13:40were classical pieces and jazz and I would rock back and forth in my chair and I would just be
00:13:46back home
00:14:07who is the unwed mother
00:14:26the doctor told me if I felt any contractions to get up to the third floor right away
00:14:39I remember holding the hand of a woman
00:14:44I felt safe if I could just hold on to that hand and not let it go
00:14:56and there were these beautiful lights
00:15:02I felt this overwhelming feeling of connection to this life inside of me
00:15:15and then it felt like everything dropped out of me
00:15:21everything went black
00:15:29mom had said don't look at the baby
00:15:37there was a screaming in my head
00:15:45I looked through this window
00:15:47and I saw this young girl picking up my daughter
00:15:54and everything in my cell said go in there and grab her
00:16:07I called my mom
00:16:13and I just said I can't do this
00:16:17I can't go through this mom
00:16:21I could feel my mom on the other end
00:16:29and she just said oh bunny
00:16:33there was a really long silence
00:16:46and I knew that the sadness we were both feeling was just too much for her
00:17:08when I read the adoption papers
00:17:11I couldn't stop crying
00:17:18the social worker said
00:17:20you will shame your whole family
00:17:22if you don't go through with it
00:17:26and don't try to find her
00:17:28until she's at least 21
00:17:38my parents never mentioned it again
00:17:42and nobody ever told my brothers and sister
00:17:46and I was like
00:18:16just to show off
00:18:16but I don't want to take a picture of the church
00:18:16I'm just going to take a picture of the church
00:18:19I felt such shame for not standing up and fighting to keep my daughter.
00:18:56Everything inside of me longs to make sense of this world without a center.
00:19:05In a clockwise direction, where is your least dangerous vehicle?
00:19:10The least dangerous vehicle, nobody's making a left anywhere. Right-hand turns can be happening, and it's very noisy.
00:19:21Right, so you're thinking about a little too much, okay?
00:19:23Okay. The least dangerous for a clockwise crossing is your near parallel.
00:20:08Right-hand turns out that I can't.
00:20:09Okay. I think that's difficult.
00:20:46It is 1967.
00:20:50I'm 21 years old, two years before Stonewall, and homosexuality is illegal in San Francisco.
00:21:00And I walk into Maud's, this dark, cavernous lesbian bar
00:21:07that was filled with hidden women.
00:21:14It both frightened and thrilled me.
00:21:19I'd always been attracted to women,
00:21:22but for the first time in my life, I felt rebellious enough to act on it.
00:21:31It was sort of a criminal euphoria, a freedom.
00:21:43It was like I had been liberated from an archetype of woman that was so strict.
00:22:10I lowered my voice.
00:22:12I started wearing comfortable shoes.
00:22:16I walked a little heavier.
00:22:25And it's like I was willing to take up space.
00:22:45I met a woman who was a filmmaker.
00:22:47And she said, would you do sound for me?
00:22:49And I said, sure, I'll do sound.
00:22:51How do I do sound?
00:22:57She said, here's a Nogger.
00:22:59And I went, boing, boing, boing.
00:23:00That is a fabulously designed machine.
00:23:10Everything was built as if it was a beautiful watch.
00:23:18She recommends me for a job at Studio 16.
00:23:24Denver Sutton, the owner, says, what do you know about film?
00:23:27I said, I know nothing about film,
00:23:29but I will work harder than anybody you've ever met.
00:23:32And I get the job.
00:23:35So I ended up doing the books, cleaning the bathrooms,
00:23:38shooting, mixing, and editing was the thing that stole my heart.
00:24:10So I ended up doing the books,
00:24:27Denver's specialty was industrial films and educational films.
00:24:32And so I got to work on some marvelous things like the product picker-packer,
00:24:37which was this incredible industrial about this machine that Crown Zellebeck had
00:24:41of how to wrap toilet paper.
00:24:44And so it was not a terribly artistic beginning,
00:24:47but I loved every part of it.
00:24:52Hello, police?
00:24:53This is Gene Collier.
00:24:55Even though a caller is expected,
00:24:57or a delivery man is well-known,
00:24:59never answer the door unless you are fully clothed.
00:25:12I would walk down Broadway every night on my way home from Studio 16.
00:25:20Something was really comfortable about North Beach.
00:25:32I had no reservations when I was asked if I would edit on several adult films.
00:25:50I went by the name of Lorraine Sprocket
00:25:53and worked on such distinguished films as
00:25:56Dingle Dangle,
00:25:59Frisco Fiasco,
00:26:00and Easy Come, Easy Go.
00:26:04I was beginning to learn about the art of metaphor.
00:26:17Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
00:26:24Everywhere I looked,
00:26:26artists and activists were breaking the rules.
00:26:31There were all these experimental filmmakers
00:26:34coming through Studio 16.
00:26:40It was like an awakening for me
00:26:43of what was possible in film.
00:26:53There was this time in San Francisco
00:26:55where everybody started taking their clothes off
00:26:57and shooting film.
00:27:00And it was just like
00:27:01every time you'd turn around,
00:27:02there was somebody nude on camera.
00:27:04And it was such a feeling of freedom,
00:27:07of acceptance
00:27:08and openness
00:27:10about our bodies
00:27:11that had been previously
00:27:14shamed.
00:27:34Just under the surface,
00:27:36I still held the secret
00:27:38of relinquishing my daughter
00:27:42and the sadness
00:27:45of not being there
00:27:47with her as she was growing up.
00:27:52I had told no one
00:27:54and I continued to wait
00:27:56for her to turn 21.
00:28:19I'm having a really hard time
00:28:21revealing to my friends
00:28:23in the film community
00:28:25that I'm losing my sight.
00:28:35I just don't want people
00:28:37to think I'm less capable.
00:28:45This really lovely filmmaker
00:28:48that I know
00:28:50asked me to come
00:28:51to the screening of her film.
00:28:54What I should have said was,
00:28:56I can't see.
00:28:58I can't see your film.
00:29:01I couldn't say that.
00:29:05And so I went.
00:29:08I left my cane at home.
00:29:16It was a foreign language film
00:29:18and I couldn't read
00:29:20any of the subtitles.
00:29:22And the characters
00:29:23were like big blocks
00:29:25and shapes
00:29:26and I couldn't see
00:29:27any of their faces.
00:29:35What am I doing?
00:29:38I'm pretending
00:29:39that I can see.
00:29:47Losing my daughter
00:29:48and losing my sight
00:29:51feel so connected.
00:30:16You used to be able
00:30:16to get in the car
00:30:17and turn the key
00:30:18and go anytime
00:30:19you wanted to go
00:30:20and you can't do
00:30:21that anymore.
00:30:22It's just this sense
00:30:24of you don't have
00:30:24the freedom
00:30:25that you had before
00:30:27and I think that's
00:30:27one of the biggest things
00:30:28is this loss
00:30:29of being independent.
00:30:31Yes.
00:30:33Siri, open Uber.
00:30:37Closing error.
00:30:38Uber.
00:30:39I'll just go.
00:30:40Dictate.
00:30:41Correct.
00:30:42I want you to listen
00:30:42to what it tells you
00:30:43because you're going
00:30:44to forget what to do next.
00:30:45You're so quick
00:30:47to single finger,
00:30:47double tap
00:30:48to start the dictation.
00:30:49You're not taking the time
00:30:51to listen to what you need
00:30:52to do when you're done.
00:30:53Okay.
00:30:54So you're going
00:30:54to touch the dictation button
00:30:56and then you're going
00:30:56to listen to what
00:30:57it tells you to do.
00:30:59Dictate button.
00:31:01Double tap
00:31:02to start dictation.
00:31:04Double tap
00:31:05with two fingers
00:31:06when finished.
00:31:07When finished.
00:31:11Ronert Park
00:31:12Smart Train Station.
00:31:25Part of the process
00:31:25is learning
00:31:26how to slow down
00:31:27a little bit
00:31:27because when you have
00:31:29usable sight,
00:31:30you just know
00:31:32where to go.
00:31:32And as you start
00:31:33losing your sight
00:31:34and you're still
00:31:35in that mode,
00:31:36like, well,
00:31:36let's just get right
00:31:37to it real quick.
00:31:38Right.
00:31:39You need to stop
00:31:39and take the time
00:31:40because you're no longer
00:31:41reading with your eyes,
00:31:42you're reading
00:31:43and you're hearing.
00:32:06For your safety,
00:32:08please watch the cam.
00:32:09So I'm going to go out.
00:32:12So I don't know
00:32:13what direction
00:32:13you're going to go
00:32:14but I'll get you
00:32:14past the yellow stuff.
00:32:15Okay, great.
00:32:16Thanks, son.
00:32:17Thank you so much.
00:32:20Step, you're...
00:32:21Right there.
00:32:21Okay.
00:32:21Thank you so much.
00:32:23Thank you so much.
00:32:42Am I on 3rd Street
00:32:44right now?
00:32:45Getting directions
00:32:46to 3rd Street,
00:32:47St. Raffaelle.
00:32:51Benjamin Moore.
00:33:00Can you tell me
00:33:01if this is 2nd Street
00:33:03or if it's 4th?
00:33:04This is 4th.
00:33:05Perfect.
00:33:06Okay.
00:33:07Is it okay to go now?
00:33:09It must be
00:33:10because these guys
00:33:11are going.
00:33:12I've just got to get back.
00:33:14I'm going to turn right
00:33:16and then I'm going to turn left
00:33:18and that'll get me
00:33:19back to the train station.
00:33:33Oh, good.
00:33:34At least I know you're going
00:33:35so I'm fine.
00:33:37to go.
00:33:42Okay.
00:33:43Next time I'll have it wired.
00:34:00Each day there's something new
00:34:02that comes along
00:34:04and says,
00:34:05uh-uh-uh,
00:34:06you don't know this one.
00:34:08And you...
00:34:09It's almost like
00:34:09I have to start all over again.
00:34:11I get frustrated with myself
00:34:13about not being able
00:34:15to learn new stuff.
00:34:16You have to be
00:34:18intentional
00:34:19about doing everything.
00:34:20That's what blindness does to you.
00:34:22It chips away
00:34:23at the things that you can do.
00:34:25Um,
00:34:27and you hold on
00:34:28to the things
00:34:28that you can do.
00:34:30I went from being
00:34:31just a really gregarious
00:34:33person
00:34:33and lots of people around me
00:34:35to being really isolated
00:34:37and feeling alone
00:34:38and not figuring out
00:34:40how I could
00:34:41climb my way
00:34:42back out of this thing.
00:35:06I remember
00:35:07when I took acid
00:35:08the first time.
00:35:11I began to see
00:35:12my sadness
00:35:13in a totally
00:35:14different way.
00:35:37I began to see
00:35:39past
00:35:39this
00:35:40small box
00:35:42of my suffering.
00:35:44seeing myself
00:35:46as being
00:35:46part of something
00:35:48much
00:35:48bigger.
00:35:52This web
00:35:54of connectedness.
00:36:16everyone
00:36:17who has
00:36:18macular degeneration
00:36:19sees differently.
00:36:23I have these
00:36:24blind spots
00:36:26and missing
00:36:27puzzle pieces
00:36:29that I fill in
00:36:30with what I think
00:36:31should be there.
00:36:37maybe these current
00:36:38visual distortions
00:36:40can be more
00:36:41than just
00:36:43a limiting disease.
00:36:44sort of
00:37:14and
00:37:14as
00:37:18Discovering the world through sound is now this crazy experience.
00:37:27I'm beginning to see through hearing.
00:38:09After years of working at Studio 16 on industrials and educational films, I started working
00:38:17on low-budget feature films for family entertainment.
00:38:21So I was looking around for editing rooms, and I saw that Coppola had opened American
00:38:27Zoetrope on Folsom Street.
00:38:30And I rented a room.
00:38:33Like, I would walk down the hallway, and it was Coppola's The Conversation, Phil Kaufman's
00:38:44White Dawn, and all these mavericks that were about to change film history.
00:38:55Eventually, I got a huge break working with some of these trailblazers.
00:39:04These guys were experimenting with everything.
00:39:15It wasn't just groundbreaking films that they brought into San Francisco, but a revolutionary
00:39:22shift in who got hired.
00:39:28A lot of women were brought into sound post-production.
00:39:33That was historic.
00:39:39An unprecedented movement in film history because sound editing, sound mixing, sound recording
00:39:46had been a male province entirely up until the 60s and 70s.
00:39:52Woohoo!
00:39:55Hi!
00:39:55Hi!
00:39:58It's so good to see you, honey!
00:40:00Hello, my darling.
00:40:01How are you?
00:40:02How are you?
00:40:02Where did Sue go?
00:40:03Are you behind you?
00:40:04I can't see.
00:40:05What the hell?
00:40:06That's all right.
00:40:06I'll give you a big hug and tell you I'm Marilyn.
00:40:11You look wonderful if I could see you in the middle.
00:40:13Bonnie, how are you?
00:40:17How are you?
00:40:18I'm Terry.
00:40:19Oh, hi, Terry.
00:40:20Good to see you again.
00:40:22And so you have something that will sort of blow things up so that you can see it better?
00:40:27That and these, all I have to do is like, like put my head back and forth because I'm
00:40:33not seeing anything out of the middle, but I can see a little bit out of the, you know,
00:40:37my peripheral vision, I try to hold on to every little bit of eyesight that I have.
00:40:42You know, I fly around here like, you know, I can see, you know, but I can't.
00:40:50So there you have it.
00:40:51I know!
00:40:52That we all are!
00:40:59We are sort of an invisible group of women.
00:41:03Film in many ways brought us together.
00:41:05I am very grateful to all of you for being so freaking fun and nice and crazy.
00:41:13All the women that I met were just generous and fun-loving, worked hard, hard, hard.
00:41:21It wasn't an easy job, but it was rewarding in the sense that you felt like you were part
00:41:27of a new family, you know?
00:41:32Friday night, you know, close up shop and there'd be a party.
00:41:37And there was, everybody shared.
00:41:40That was so much fun and we would dance around, like, remember?
00:41:43Well, it always seems like people should dance in the editing room.
00:41:46Oh, yeah.
00:41:46Right?
00:41:47You guys were the best.
00:41:54It's not just a job.
00:41:58There's so much more than that.
00:42:04This feeling of deep kinship.
00:42:08There was this kind of generosity of spirit among the sound people.
00:42:13It was really just this opportunity to see how everything went down.
00:42:23What are you doing?
00:42:24I'm cutting sound from Mosquito Coast.
00:42:30There's Harrison Ford going back and forth.
00:42:35This huge group of people were working towards this one goal of bringing this story to life.
00:42:48Eventually, I met Vivian and that is a story unto itself.
00:43:06One day, from across the room, this woman walked in.
00:43:14After work, a bunch of us from the studio decided to go to Coppola's Eccentric Hamburger Joint in North Beach.
00:43:23Karen played a tune on the jukebox.
00:43:32She climbed up on the countertop and started miming out the song.
00:43:44This was the craziest and most dynamic woman I had ever met.
00:43:52I stood here beholding my future unfolding.
00:43:59I stood here beholding my future unfolding right before my eyes.
00:44:13My eyes
00:44:16We proceeded to have a film life together.
00:44:23That started off a whole series of editing dialogue
00:44:27on more and more feature films.
00:44:33In preparing the tracks for the mix,
00:44:36I would work with the actors' words.
00:44:45It was the most exacting work,
00:44:47but I felt really close to the performance.
00:44:53And then when I got to do ADR and re-record their voice,
00:44:57I would try to help the actor
00:44:59get back into the feeling of the scene.
00:45:02How could I tell him what music meant to me?
00:45:09In 84, we worked on Amadeus.
00:45:13Even though I was working in the dialogue department,
00:45:16Mozart's music would be emanating from the mix room
00:45:19and through the halls of the Solzant Center.
00:45:26I felt the same joy as I did as a child,
00:45:29listening to the music in my family home.
00:45:55In 1984, Karen and I bought a little farm on the wrong side of the tracks,
00:45:59and we called it Mom's Head.
00:46:05We began two different lives.
00:46:08The fast-paced world of feature films on one hand,
00:46:12and living on a two-and-a-half-acre farm on the other.
00:46:31When we first came here, the owner said,
00:46:34oh, there's a kicker bar out there, and we said, right.
00:46:40When we got profiled by Bay Area Back Road,
00:46:43we had to change the name to the Buffalo Gal Saloon.
00:46:46I mean, for very serious professional people,
00:46:49what's going on here?
00:46:51Well, why not?
00:47:08But every time we'd have a party,
00:47:10we'd have about three or four hundred people come over,
00:47:12and there'd be like something people couldn't bear to part with,
00:47:16but they thought, this is perfect for the kicker bar.
00:47:19And then it just slowly started accumulating.
00:47:32Anyway, it still works.
00:47:34I have to get it clean so it doesn't play all the chords at once.
00:47:45I have many times talked to people who say, I'm not that blind, I'm fine.
00:47:52I can get around the house, I can see everything, and I'll ask them,
00:47:58what happens when you leave the place that you inhabit all the time,
00:48:03and go someplace that you're not very familiar with?
00:48:14I went to LA for a screening, and I thought I'd be okay because I had an assistant at the
00:48:19airport and then a car to pick me up.
00:48:23I went to the hotel, got in the elevator, and I couldn't figure out what floor I was on or
00:48:30how to get off,
00:48:31and I didn't realize I needed a key card or anything about what was going on.
00:48:36I said, I'm just stuck in this elevator, so I guess I'll just wait in this elevator until someone comes
00:48:41along.
00:48:41And I just thought, how could you not have anticipated that?
00:48:45And then so I came right back home and signed up for Braille.
00:48:49Good for you.
00:48:58I slowly, just for the first time the other day, just ran my fingers over it, and a word popped
00:49:04in.
00:49:05And I just went, I'm touching a word.
00:49:10I mean, because I've been using so much of my hearing that the sense of touch was this sense that
00:49:17I hadn't totally pursued.
00:49:19And I just went, whoa, it's coming alive in my fingers and going up to my brain.
00:49:26It's a tough thing. I'm up to E in the alphabet, but you can make a lot of words with
00:49:32E.
00:49:33And A through E, A through E.
00:49:36Just extraordinary that the word is touch.
00:49:55One day, I look out the window, and there's a little man in a tree.
00:50:00It kind of looked like Mark Twain in a way.
00:50:03Right away when I saw it, it was only a day later that I had an appointment with my vision
00:50:08therapist.
00:50:09And I said, this little man showed up in a tree.
00:50:12She goes, that's the Charles Bonet syndrome.
00:50:15People with sight loss often see children and animals and people in period costume.
00:50:22And they look completely real.
00:50:28What I think caused it is the incredible eye strain that I had over about a week of trying really
00:50:37hard to write.
00:50:39I don't want to lose it due to eye strain.
00:50:46But I can't give up this trying to see.
00:50:53It's unstuck. I just don't want to...
00:50:57I want to keep my sight as long as I can.
00:51:03I just felt like I saw a bit of magic.
00:51:05.
00:51:06.
00:51:07.
00:51:53I had this great run of dialogue editing and working on these fantastic films in the Bay Area, but the
00:52:01work started to dry up and I had to go to Los Angeles for a job.
00:52:09LA had a different vibe.
00:52:18And they got a phone call for you and it's Walter Merch.
00:52:22And Walter Merch said, we were wondering if you'd like to come back up to Berkeley and edit picture on
00:52:26Unbearable Lightness of Being.
00:52:27And I went, can somebody make me a plane reservation this instant?
00:52:47I had worked for decades as a dialogue and sound editor, and now to be a picture editor, it was
00:52:55an extraordinary opportunity.
00:52:59They were trying something different, searching for a new beauty.
00:53:09Yes.
00:53:12We worked with some of the most wonderful men, you know, I mean, they were so helpful.
00:53:17So all the directors were really helpful in my career.
00:53:20Phil Kaufman gave me one job after another.
00:53:22It does disappoint me that still to this day, there are the statistics for women in roles of leadership in
00:53:32the different creative departments are no better than 40 years ago.
00:53:35That sucks.
00:53:36It's very complex to sort of tease it out, like, why didn't we get the opportunities we all deserved?
00:53:43I mean, a lot of real, you know, you look at the room and how much talent is sitting in
00:53:47the room.
00:53:47And yes, we were successful in editing, but why was it so impossible to take that next step?
00:53:53And then there is this really strange space, which is us as women working our buns off, working on films
00:54:01reflected through the eyes of a man.
00:54:03As film editors, we're not always controlling, we're not controlling the content, and we're artists for hire in a way.
00:54:10So we're available for what's being made already.
00:54:15When I was first asked to work on Henry and June, I thought, holy cow, this is the beginning of
00:54:21cutting picture on big budget films.
00:54:24And I just felt like, this is really success.
00:54:31But my definition of success started to change.
00:54:37This isn't me.
00:54:40This is not me.
00:54:41Of course it's you.
00:54:43It's the you inside me.
00:54:45It's a distortion.
00:54:50I remember thinking.
00:54:52You have to be really careful, Viv.
00:54:54You could lose yourself.
00:55:17My eyesight's getting a little worse.
00:55:20And my eyes are darting around, looking for a way to put together the pieces.
00:55:38The Picasso face is turning into a blank face.
00:55:51And the blank face, I can't really tell people's expression.
00:56:10Even though I'm kind of tracking where their eyes might be and practicing that a lot.
00:56:19I still can't see their eyes, and I can't see the expressions on their face.
00:56:27I knew that they could see me, but I couldn't see them.
00:56:32And I felt so naked, so vulnerable.
00:56:42One of the things I really miss is like when Karen and I are just sitting in the living room
00:56:49watching TV or something,
00:56:50and just glance over and I just catch her eye, but now I don't see her face, and I just
00:57:01miss seeing my darling's face.
00:57:21We're collecting stories about plants from history.
00:57:24Sweet Woodruff was used during the May festivals and was May wine.
00:57:28We have woad.
00:57:29They mixed it up and they painted their bodies blue.
00:57:31Blue in the old days in England, so we have very ancient plants from history.
00:57:37I took a break from editing feature films and immersed myself in growing medicinal herbs.
00:57:45We knew nothing about plants when we first arrived.
00:57:48Slowly planting taught us.
00:57:50The plants taught us.
00:57:53We work in the film business, which is very exhausting.
00:57:57And so we started doing this because for our own health, it felt good.
00:58:02The more we worked around these plants, the better we began to feel.
00:58:11And then children came, busloads of kids from local schools.
00:58:28Ever since relinquishing my daughter, I felt sort of awkward around kids.
00:58:40And then one day, this young girl came up to me and took my hand.
00:58:44And in that small gesture, I felt all of that awkwardness fade away.
00:59:02Mom's head evolved from pasture grass to a medicinal garden to a forest.
00:59:09Mom's head evolved from pasture grass to a forest.
00:59:22And he was dead, I felt like a reference was pushed.
00:59:26He was dead next to the ground.
00:59:28He was dead next to the earlylong�power.
00:59:29They said well, Oh a wonderful, old lipstick.
00:59:38Ghaz favorite, that doesn't know.
00:59:38Paris just finished altogether.
00:59:59Power on.
01:00:03Start recording.
01:00:05Calendula officinalis.
01:00:09Recording is done.
01:00:12Calendula officinalis.
01:00:20This is a new label. Start recording.
01:00:24Lithania Somnifera.
01:00:29Ashwagandha.
01:00:31Recording is done.
01:00:35Lithania Somnifera. Ashwagandha.
01:00:53Ashwagandha.
01:00:55Say Ashwagandha.
01:01:01I know you.
01:01:10This will be a little bit warmer for you.
01:01:23A switch to documentaries came as a crisis of conscience, and then a chance meeting with documentary filmmaker Lourdes Portillo.
01:01:37Lourdes, I'm here.
01:01:40I'm going to throw you the key, okay?
01:01:42Okay.
01:01:46Hi, honey bunny.
01:01:49How are you, my sweetheart?
01:01:51Old.
01:01:53Old.
01:01:56You know, coming from feature films, and I had, you know, worked for all men, you know, in all of
01:02:02my film career up to there, and then all of a sudden I meet Lourdes Portillo.
01:02:06The great cook.
01:02:08The great cook.
01:02:09The great cook.
01:02:13You brought this kind of, this kind of freedom. Like, it expanded my idea of what was possible.
01:02:26And we both have a very sick sense of humor.
01:02:28No, I don't.
01:02:30No, I don't.
01:02:38Lourdes had this infectious and unique way of looking deeply into the world.
01:02:49She imbued her films with a love of culture and family.
01:02:58The stories that Lourdes told breathed life into me.
01:03:15I just, I thought, this is really what I want to do.
01:03:18This is, it's heartfelt, it has meaning, and it just filled me with happiness.
01:03:24Nothing in this earth has given me more pleasure, you know, than to be an artist who makes films.
01:03:35That was a major turning point for me in terms of leaving feature films and falling in love with documentaries.
01:03:49One of the most haunting films that Lourdes and I worked on was Senorita Extraviata.
01:03:57About the disappearance and murder of hundreds of young women in Juarez, Mexico.
01:04:05What we did to begin with was put their photographs up around near the ceiling of the editing room.
01:04:12And we surrounded the room with their photos so that we were looking up as we worked.
01:04:22They were descending down to talk to us from the heavens.
01:04:45There was so much horror that there was no handle for it.
01:04:51There was no way to speak about it besides it being horror and you just want to cry.
01:04:56Or you don't want to see it.
01:04:59And remember how we tried to figure out how we were going to approach it.
01:05:07That conversation was so meaningful to me.
01:05:11This film was going to be about the beauty of the girls that the mothers saw in their daughters.
01:05:27We make an effort, yeah, we make an effort because we know what would happen if we don't.
01:05:51After counting down the years, my daughter turned 21 and I could finally start searching for her.
01:06:03But all the records were sealed or confidential.
01:06:07And everywhere I looked, I hit a brick wall.
01:06:14And then my partner Karen helped me search for her.
01:06:20I took a little break from being an assistant sound editor and I became a private detective.
01:06:26One of the first things she told me when we started seeing each other seriously was that she had given
01:06:32up a child for adoption and that it was really hard for her.
01:06:37I realized that the trauma alone made it impossible to search alone.
01:06:44When she talked about resuming her search for her daughter, it was a no brainer that I would, that I
01:06:51would help.
01:06:53I went off to Sacramento where all the records for the state of California were kept.
01:06:59On about the fourth day, I found a record for a baby girl born on the right day in the
01:07:05right location.
01:07:06She lived in Redwood City.
01:07:08I realized that she would have gone to high school there.
01:07:11So I headed to Redwood City to Sequoia High.
01:07:17So as I'm looking through the yearbook, I turned the page and there's a picture of a young woman who
01:07:24looked so much like Vivian when she was a teenager.
01:07:28I cleared my voice.
01:07:29I went and ripped the picture out of the yearbook.
01:07:34And drove right to the Sal's Ants Company.
01:07:39She's in her little editing room and I take out the picture and I show it to her and she
01:07:45instantly starts crying.
01:07:47So what's going on?
01:07:52200,000
01:07:52200,000
01:07:53200,000
01:08:18My daughter and I first met in 1988
01:08:23at a restaurant I was looking you know doing that you know that when you're on
01:08:30like a blind date yeah like you're trying to find this person you don't
01:08:33really know what they look like I think I saw you and I'm like oh my god I think
01:08:40that's her so afraid and then you're sort of like well now I have to do this you
01:08:46were stunning you walked in and I just went oh my god it was
01:08:52sweet and awkward at the same time you know yes lived in two different levels
01:08:56at the same time I just remember feeling like I was holding my breath everything
01:09:01was here everything was here just anxious you were so gracious sharing photographs
01:09:09hmm you know of yourself growing up and I looked at that book and I thought I get
01:09:14to see her grow up I always knew I was adopted my parents always knew I was
01:09:24English and Irish because that's what the document said I was half Irish half
01:09:30English but mostly German my German name is Kati my parents were immigrants from
01:09:42Germany I came around at four months and then my brother came two and a half years
01:09:48later he's also adopted from a different family we lived in a huge house acre of
01:09:55property in middle of San Carlos it was a really beautiful place to grow up I was
01:10:02one of four of this family the adoption wasn't something that we discussed I was
01:10:10their child when I started coming up to mom's head I felt safe here so when
01:10:21things would go wrong I found myself coming up here and I felt there was I just could breathe
01:10:34you just like walked in this place as if it would have always known you you know and you would
01:10:40always somehow known this place I was excited you know because it was a door it was a little bit
01:10:47of
01:10:47light that was starting to come in and there was some connection when I introduced Kathleen
01:10:57to my family my brothers and sister were shocked they never knew that I had had a child
01:11:08so I always had this feeling like I think I'm supposed to be a part of a big family
01:11:13I just remember we were at some long table and everybody was talking at the same time we all
01:11:19understood each other you knew what you were saying it felt more family-like
01:11:35each time I gave her a hug or held her hand I just felt this was the feeling I longed
01:11:42for
01:11:43for so many years we saw each other for birthdays and holidays and we would talk on the phone for
01:11:56hours
01:12:1010 years after finding Kathleen I worked with Diane Borchelin who was adopted from Korea
01:12:17by an American family our stories are vastly different but I got a chance to just glimpse a little bit
01:12:26into the life of an adoptee I think the fact that you had this experience with adoption just it
01:12:33provided a deeper understanding of the story and that brought out nuances that I think might not have
01:12:38been there if you hadn't been a birth mother interacting with this story you know as me as an adoptee
01:12:43I
01:12:45tried to tell my mother that I wasn't who she thought I was I told her my Korean mother is
01:12:53alive
01:12:55I remember her taking me to the orphanage
01:13:00we used to live in a house on top of a hill
01:13:04she said no honey that part's just a dream you're a war orphan and both your parents are dead
01:13:25I would like watch you like a hawk because I thought you know I need to know what Diane feels
01:13:32inside of her
01:13:33heart and how and how you held this process of adoption you know I think with adoption there's
01:13:39always the question of what if what if I hadn't left what if I hadn't been adopted what if my
01:13:45mother had kept me what would I have turned out like
01:13:55as I pieced together my own life I asked myself the same question
01:14:02what if I had run back to that room and grabbed my daughter if I hadn't signed the adoption papers
01:14:14if I had been able to bring her home
01:14:17badly with me ohhh
01:14:46friends
01:14:47relatives
01:14:47free
01:14:59The word mother, over the years we've searched for kind of ways of what to call each other.
01:15:06And so I would email you as different names.
01:15:10You know, let's try out this name this week.
01:15:13Does this feel right for us?
01:15:14You know, love bunny, love nana bunny, love Vivian.
01:15:19You were tiptoeing through the tulips on this word, knowing how much of a trigger word that was for me.
01:15:25Because I didn't understand why I couldn't call you mom.
01:15:29And I just, I still have a hard time with that.
01:15:32Right.
01:15:33It's that intimacy of mother.
01:15:37Well, I didn't bring you up, you know.
01:15:40So I didn't, I wasn't your first mother experience.
01:15:44Now it's just like, Vivian, I love you for Vivian, okay?
01:15:49Or, or I call you bio mom.
01:15:53I love it.
01:15:54I'm like, yeah, my bio mom.
01:15:56Yeah, yeah.
01:15:56I love it.
01:15:57So mother's a trigger for my relationship with you as a mother that puts my mom right next to you.
01:16:11And those two can't sit in the same space.
01:16:16So my mom was Mutti.
01:16:19So there was authority in mother.
01:16:26And there's fear in that.
01:16:29And there's discomfort in that.
01:16:31And there's a lot of stuff in that.
01:16:51A little over a year ago, Kathleen started revealing more and more about her childhood.
01:17:06After my parents died, we were cleaning out the house.
01:17:10And we found all of my mom's diaries, opened it up, and first thing I see is this comment about
01:17:20we adopted her.
01:17:23She's four and a half months old.
01:17:24She's got digestive problems.
01:17:26She's not eating well.
01:17:28And, oh, my God, this kid is so stubborn and petulant.
01:17:32And I've got to beat this out of her.
01:17:40I just have a full-on breakdown.
01:17:43Full-on.
01:17:46And it just, it came out.
01:17:49And I was grabbing.
01:17:51I was just sitting there like this, just grabbing.
01:17:53And tears are coming down and it just, everything came out.
01:17:59And all of a sudden, this fit with this.
01:18:02And all of a sudden, oh, that's why I did this.
01:18:05And, oh, no wonder.
01:18:13I was beat into submission.
01:18:15I had no rights.
01:18:17I had no voice.
01:18:19I mean, we got beat with, with the belt and my dad broke a doorjamb because he went for my
01:18:25head.
01:18:26I ducked.
01:18:28You know, being tied up to the, to the fireplace because, you know, I would wander.
01:18:35I didn't understand how my life connected through being born, being given up for adoption, being adopted, and then being
01:18:46abused.
01:18:51I was angry at you.
01:18:52I was so angry.
01:18:53It's the first time.
01:18:54And I'm like, I can't talk to you.
01:18:56I need to walk away from you.
01:18:57And I can't talk to you because this hurts too much.
01:19:00And I need to figure out who I am on my own.
01:19:16I felt responsible for what Kathleen went through.
01:19:25I prayed I wouldn't lose her again.
01:19:52I didn't know if, which way our relationship was going to go.
01:19:57So it hadn't very little to do with you, but it started with you.
01:20:06There was neglect and, and abandonment that wasn't addressed.
01:20:11And then abuse and everything else was packed on top of that.
01:20:17That wasn't you doing something wrong.
01:20:20My parents did something wrong.
01:20:22So I needed to separate those two things out.
01:20:27It took a while.
01:20:28It took almost a year.
01:20:29I couldn't run after you.
01:20:32I just, I knew that what, what you needed was space.
01:20:37It was a, um, an act of faith that you wouldn't leave.
01:20:42That you'd give me the time.
01:20:45Mm-hmm.
01:20:46And you did.
01:20:47I'm making a conscious effort to be me, to allow you to see me.
01:20:55And I have family.
01:20:57I have real family now.
01:20:59I know it's been 30 years, but I finally feel it because I can't.
01:21:03I couldn't before.
01:21:06Oh, my dear.
01:21:08I know it's been 30 years, but I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do it because I can't do
01:21:36it because I can
01:21:39As much as I want to, I can't change the past.
01:21:44When I was younger, I saw myself as someone who didn't really have a choice.
01:21:51Now I want to take responsibility for the decisions I made.
01:22:04And that, in a way, frees me to be more present for Kathleen.
01:22:24Losing my sight has allowed me to use my other senses, to drop in with people, to feel close
01:22:36to them, to feel people's presence.
01:22:41A little more.
01:23:00It's entirely possible to hold the joy and the sadness in a moment.
01:23:11To allow both to exist at the same time.
01:23:23And cut.
01:23:25To ver if I can see you at the same time.
01:23:33Stay Ouah!
01:23:43I don't know.
01:24:10I don't know.
01:24:34I don't know.
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