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Independent Lens - Season 27 - Episode 04: Vivien's Wild Ride
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00:05:02My sight.
00:05:05There's no cure.
00:05:25Who am I?
00:05:28Without the visual world.
00:05:32Mmm.
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, you know, 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.
00:06:35Now 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.
00:06:52And it was this overwhelming feeling.
00:06:56It just, all of a sudden, I just felt like I was drowning.
00:07:08The 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.
00:08:08This might, a peak for toenails andOTHER.
00:08:27And be just me.
00:08:27You can see this side.
00:08:30You can see .
00:08:40I grew up in this very suburban house.
00:08:44I was the eldest of five, and everyone called me Bunny.
00:08:51And I felt like the kids, I felt like they were like my kids on some level.
00:08:58When my dad came home from work, he would walk over to the piano, sit down, and begin to play.
00:09:13There was this freedom in him.
00:09:18And we all would go bananas and run around the house and scream and yell, and my mother loved it.
00:09:26She would laugh and embrace the craziness.
00:09:34Music was bringing in so much joy.
00:09:40When we went outside, it really was different.
00:09:45I was painfully shy, but not when I skated.
00:09:51I would, like, come into my body and feel the music that was in our house.
00:09:55I would feel so free and alive.
00:10:11Johnny and Janie are not yet quite grown into manhood and womanhood.
00:10:16They are in between.
00:10:18And the in between period is known as puberty.
00:10:21This name is used to describe the physical growth and change that bring sexual maturity.
00:10:28As I was growing up, mom never talked to me about puberty or sex or anything like that.
00:10:42It's 1964.
00:10:47No birth control for unmarried women.
00:10:51And abortion is illegal.
00:11:14High school.
00:11:18A boy.
00:11:22One night.
00:11:33I just thought everything was natural.
00:11:37I didn't feel bad until, oh, my God, you're pregnant.
00:11:42It'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.
00:13:14But when I went in there, I was actually so relieved to be at a place with other girls who
00:13:24were 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.
00:13:37And she would play these amazing things that were classical pieces and jazz.
00:13:42And I would rock back and forth in my chair and I would just be back home.
00:14:07Who is the unwed mother?
00:14:11Is she a tramp, a neurotic, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks?
00:14:15Perhaps you may feel she is not the kind of girl you would want to invite into your house.
00:14:29The 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.
00:14:44And I felt safe if I could just hold on to that hand and not let it go.
00:14:56And there were these beautiful lights.
00:15:02And I 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.
00:16:14And 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, Bonnie.
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, I couldn't stop crying.
00:17:18The social worker said, you will shame your whole family if you don't go through with it.
00:17:26And don't try to find her until she's at least 21.
00:17:38My parents never mentioned it again.
00:17:42And nobody ever told my brothers and sister.
00:17:46I can't find her.
00:17:48And don't try to find her.
00:17:52When I ed falsely.
00:18:09I don't remember her in those 조금 seconds.
00:18:14I might add names.
00:18:15And I didn't know throw at me before.
00:18:16I wish I could see her in her.
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.
00:20:06Here we go.
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.
00:21:30It 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 Naugra.
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.
00:24:06I went, I got to conseguenza of films.
00:24:27Denver's specialty was industrial films and educational films and so I got to work on some
00:24:33marvelous things like the product picker-packer which was this incredible industrial about this
00:24:39machine that Crown Zellebeck had of how to wrap toilet paper and so it was not a terribly artistic
00:24:47beginning but I loved every part of it hello police this is Jean Collier even though a caller
00:24:56is expected or a delivery man is well known never answer the door unless you are fully clothed
00:25:12I would walk down Broadway every night on my way home from Studio 16 something was really
00:25:21comfortable about North Beach I had no reservations when I was asked if I would edit on several adult
00:25:49films I went by the name of Lorraine sprocket and worked on such distinguished films as dingle dangle
00:25:58brisco fiasco and easy come easy go I was beginning to learn about the art of metaphor
00:26:16peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God
00:26:24everywhere I looked artists and activists were breaking the rules there were all these
00:26:33experimental filmmakers coming through Studio 16 it was like an awakening for me of what was possible in
00:26:52film there was this time in San Francisco where everybody started taking their clothes off and shooting film and it
00:27:00was just like over time you turn around there was somebody new on camera and it was such a feeling
00:27:06of freedom of acceptance and openness about our bodies that had been previously shamed
00:27:34just under the surface I still held the secret of relinquishing my daughter
00:27:42and the sadness of not being there with her as she's growing up I had told no one and I
00:27:55continued to wait for her to turn 21
00:28:19I'm having a really hard time revealing to my friends in the film community that I'm losing my sight
00:28:35I just don't want people to think I'm less capable
00:28:45this really lovely filmmaker that I know asked me to come to the screening of her film
00:28:54what I should have said what I should have said was I can't see I can't see I can't see
00:28:59your film
00:29:01I couldn't say that
00:29:05and so I went
00:29:08I left my cane
00:29:09at home
00:29:16it was a foreign language film and I couldn't read any of the subtitles
00:29:22and the characters were like big blocks and shapes and I couldn't see any of their faces
00:29:35what am I doing
00:29:38I'm pretending that I can see
00:29:47losing my daughter
00:29:48losing my daughter
00:29:49and losing my sight
00:29:51feel so
00:29:52connected
00:30:16you used to be able to get in the car and turn the key and go anytime you wanted to
00:30:20go
00:30:20and you can't do that anymore
00:30:22it's just this sense of you don't have the freedom
00:30:25that you had before and I think that's one of the biggest things is this loss of being independent
00:30:31yes
00:30:32siri
00:30:34open uber
00:30:37closing error
00:30:38uber
00:30:38I'll just go
00:30:39dictate
00:30:40correct
00:30:41I want you to listen to what it tells you because you're going to forget what to do next
00:30:45you're so quick to single finger double tap to start the dictation
00:30:49you're not taking the time to listen to what you need to do when you're done
00:30:53okay
00:30:54so you're going to touch the dictation button and then you're going to listen to what it
00:30:57tells you to do
00:30:58and so dictate button
00:31:01double tap to start dictation
00:31:03double tap with two fingers when finished
00:31:07when finished
00:31:11Ronert Park
00:31:12smart train station
00:31:24part of the process is learning how to slow down a little bit
00:31:27because when you have usable sight
00:31:30you just know where to go
00:31:32and as you start losing your sight
00:31:34and you're still in that mode
00:31:36like well let's just get right to it real quick
00:31:38you need to stop and take the time
00:31:40because you're no longer reading with your eyes
00:31:42you're reading with your hearing
00:32:12so I don't know what direction you're going to go
00:32:14but I'll get you past the yellow stuff
00:32:15okay great thanks son
00:32:17thank you so much
00:32:19step you're
00:32:20right there
00:32:21okay
00:32:21thank you so much
00:32:42am I on third street right now
00:32:44getting directions to third street
00:32:59can you tell me if this is second street or if it's fourth
00:33:04this is fourth perfect okay
00:33:07is it okay
00:33:08is it okay to go now
00:33:09it must be because these guys are going
00:33:12I 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 back to the train station
00:33:33oh good at least I know you're going
00:33:35so I'm fine
00:33:37to go
00:33:41okay next time I'll have it wired
00:33:59each day there's something new
00:34:02that comes along
00:34:04and says
00:34:05uh uh uh
00:34:05you 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 to learn new stuff
00:34:16you have to be
00:34:18intentional about doing everything
00:34:20that's what blindness does you
00:34:22it chips away
00:34:23at the things that you can do
00:34:26and you hold on to the things that you can do
00:34:29I went from being just a really gregarious person
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 how I could
00:34:41climb my way back out of this thing
00:35:06I remember when I took acid the first time
00:35:11I began to see my sadness
00:35:13in a totally different way
00:35:37I began to see past
00:35:39this small box of my suffering
00:35:44seeing myself as being
00:35:46part of something much bigger
00:35:52this web of connectedness
00:36:15everyone who has macular degeneration
00:36:19sees differently
00:36:23I have these blind spots
00:36:26and missing puzzle pieces
00:36:29that I fill in with what I think
00:36:31should be there
00:36:37maybe these current visual distortions
00:36:40can be more
00:36:41than just a limiting disease
00:36:44and see if I can be more
00:36:59and I don't know
00:36:59you
00:37:00you
00:37:00you
00:37:00you
00:37:11you
00:37:17Discovering 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,
00:38:12on industrials and educational films,
00:38:15I started working on low-budget feature films for family entertainment.
00:38:21So I was looking around for editing rooms,
00:38:24and I saw that Coppola had opened American Zoetrope on Folsom Street.
00:38:30And I rented a room.
00:38:33Like, I would walk down the hallway,
00:38:36and it was Coppola's The Conversation.
00:38:39Kill us if you've got the chance.
00:38:42Phil Kaufman's White Dawn.
00:38:45Saturday, May 17th.
00:38:47And all these mavericks that were about to change film history.
00:38:55Eventually, I got a huge break
00:38:59working with some of these trailblazers.
00:39:03These guys were experimenting with everything.
00:39:15It wasn't just groundbreaking films that they brought into San Francisco,
00:39:20but a revolutionary shift in who got hired.
00:39:28a lot of women were brought into sound post-production.
00:39:34That was historic.
00:39:38An unprecedented movement in film history
00:39:42because sound editing, sound mixing, sound recording
00:39:46had been a male province entirely up until the 60s and 70s.
00:39:58So good to see you, honey.
00:40:00Hello, my darling.
00:40:01Hi, there.
00:40:02How are you?
00:40:02Where did Sue go?
00:40:03I can't see.
00:40:05What the hell?
00:40:06Oh, that's all right.
00:40:06I'll give you a big hug and tell you I'm Marilyn.
00:40:11You look wonderful.
00:40:12If I could see you, I'm beautiful.
00:40:13Bonnie Cole.
00:40:14Oh, Bonnie, how are you?
00:40:17How are you?
00:40:18Oh, hi, Terry.
00:40:20Good to see you.
00:40:20Good to see you again.
00:40:22And so you have something that will sort of blow things up
00:40:25so that you can see it better?
00:40:27That and these, all I have to do is like put my head back and forth
00:40:33because I'm not seeing anything out of the middle,
00:40:35but I can see a little bit out of my peripheral vision.
00:40:38Yeah, yeah.
00:40:39I try to hold on to every little bit of eyesight that I have.
00:40:42You know, I fly around here like I can see, you know, but I can't.
00:40:49So there you have it.
00:40:59We are sort of an invisible group of women.
00:41:03Film in many ways brought us together.
00:41:06I 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.
00:41:19Worked 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 of
00:41:27a 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.
00:41:57It's so much more than that.
00:42:04This feeling of deep kinship.
00:42:09There 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.
00:43:52In her life, I stand here beholding my future unfolding right before my eyes.
00:44:03I stand here beholding my future unfolding right before my eyes.
00:44:10My eyes
00:44:16We proceeded to have a film life together.
00:44:23That started off a whole series of editing dialogue on more and more feature films.
00:44:33In preparing the tracks for the mix, I would work with the actor's words.
00:44:45It was the most exacting work, but I felt really close to the performance.
00:44:53And then when I got to do ADR and re-record their voice, I 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, Mozart's music would be emanating from the mix room and through
00:45:20the halls of the Salzand Center.
00:45:26I felt the same joy as I did as a child, listening 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, and we called it
00:46:00Mom's Head.
00:46:05We began two different lives.
00:46:08The fast-paced world of feature films on one hand, and living on a two-and-a-half-acre farm
00:46:14on the other.
00:46:31When we first came here, the owner said, oh, there's a kicker bar out there, and we said, right.
00:46:40When we got profiled by Bay Area Backroads, we had to change the name to the Buffalo Gals Saloon.
00:46:46I mean, for very serious, professional people, what's going on here?
00:46:51Well, why not?
00:47:08But every time we'd have a party, we'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, but they thought, this is perfect for the kicker
00:47:18bar.
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 and go someplace that you're not very
00:48:06familiar with?
00:48:13I went to L.A. for a screening, and I thought I'd be okay because I had an assistant at
00:48:19the airport and then a car to pick me up.
00:48:23I went to the hotel, got in the elevator.
00:48:27And I couldn't figure out what floor I was on or how 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.
00:48:58And 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, and because I've been using so much of my hearing, that the sense of touch was this sense
00:49:17that I hadn't totally pursued.
00:49:19And I just went, whoa, it's coming alive in my fingers and going up to my brain.
00:49:25And it's a tough thing.
00:49:27I'm up to E in the alphabet, but you can make a lot of words with E.
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.
00:50:00He 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, but I can't give up this trying to see.
00:50:53It's unstuck, I just don't want to, I want to keep my sight as long as I can.
00:51:03I just felt like I saw a bit of magic.
00:51:32I don't know.
00:51:53I had this great run of dialogue editing
00:51:56and working on these fantastic films in the Bay Area.
00:52:00But the work started to dry up,
00:52:03and I had to go to Los Angeles for a job.
00:52:09L.A. had a different vibe.
00:52:18And they did a phone call for you, and it's Walter Murch.
00:52:21And Walter Murch said,
00:52:23we were wondering if you'd like to come back up to Berkeley
00:52:25and edit picture on Unbearable 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,
00:52:53and now to be a picture editor,
00:52:54it was an extraordinary opportunity.
00:53:00They were trying something different.
00:53:04Searching for a new beauty.
00:53:09Yes.
00:53:12We worked with some of the most wonderful men.
00:53:15Oh, my gosh.
00:53:15You 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.
00:53:23It does disappoint me that still to this day,
00:53:26there are the statistics for women
00:53:29in roles of leadership
00:53:31in the different creative departments
00:53:33are no better than 40 years ago.
00:53:36That sucks.
00:53:37It's very complex to sort of tease it out.
00:53:39Like, why didn't we get the opportunities we all deserved?
00:53:43I mean, a lot of real, you know,
00:53:44you look at the room and how much talent is sitting in the room.
00:53:47And yes, we were successful in editing,
00:53:49but why was it so impossible to take that next step?
00:53:53And then there is this really strange space,
00:53:57which is us as women working our buns off,
00:54:00working on films reflected through the eyes of a man.
00:54:03As film editors, we're not always controlling,
00:54:06we're not controlling the content,
00:54:07and 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,
00:54:18I thought, holy cow,
00:54:20this is the beginning of cutting picture
00:54:22on big-budget films.
00:54:24And I just felt like,
00:54:26this is really success.
00:54:31But my definition of success
00:54:35started to change.
00:54:37This isn't me.
00:54:40It's just 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.
00:55:16My eyesight's getting a little worse.
00:55:20And my eyes are darting around,
00:55:24looking for a way to put together the pieces.
00:55:38The Picasso face
00:55:39is turning into a blank face.
00:55:51And the blank face,
00:55:55I can't really tell people's expression.
00:56:10Even though I'm kind of
00:56:13tracking where their eyes might be
00:56:17and practicing that a lot,
00:56:19I still can't see their eyes,
00:56:21and I can't see the expressions on their face.
00:56:27I knew that they could see me,
00:56:29but I couldn't see them.
00:56:32And I felt so naked,
00:56:35so vulnerable.
00:56:42One of the things I really miss
00:56:44is like when Karen and I
00:56:47are just sitting in the living room
00:56:49watching TV or something
00:56:50and just glance over
00:56:53and I just catch her eye.
00:56:56But now I don't see her face.
00:57:00And I just miss seeing my darling's face.
00:57:21We're collecting stories
00:57:22about plants from history.
00:57:24Sweet Woodruff was used
00:57:25during the May festivals
00:57:26and was May wine.
00:57:28We have woad.
00:57:29They mixed it up
00:57:30and they painted their bodies blue
00:57:31in the old days in England.
00:57:33So we have very ancient plants
00:57:34from history.
00:57:37I took a break
00:57:38from editing feature films
00:57:40and immersed myself
00:57:42and immersed myself
00:57:43in growing medicinal herbs.
00:57:45We knew nothing about plants
00:57:47when we first arrived.
00:57:48Slowly planting taught us.
00:57:50The plants taught us.
00:57:53We work in the film business,
00:57:55which is very exhausting.
00:57:57And so we started doing this
00:57:59because for our own health,
00:58:01it felt good.
00:58:02The more we worked around these plants,
00:58:05the better we began to feel.
00:58:11And then children came.
00:58:15Busloads of kids
00:58:16from local schools.
00:58:28Ever since relinquishing my daughter,
00:58:32I felt sort of awkward around kids.
00:58:40And then one day,
00:58:41this young girl came up to me
00:58:43and took my hand.
00:58:45And in that small gesture,
00:58:49I felt all of that awkwardness fade away.
00:59:02Mom's head evolved
00:59:04from pasture grass
00:59:05to a medicinal garden
00:59:07to a forest.
00:59:09姑姑's a forest.
00:59:16Give her a minute to be
00:59:16Then she used to learn
00:59:19the early night might come from
00:59:19in the middle of the forest.
00:59:19And then she saw
00:59:25the hills in the middle and
00:59:29And now,
00:59:29And now,
00:59:30and the river
00:59:30and the river
00:59:31and the river
00:59:31and the river
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.
01:00:23Start recording.
01:00:24Lithenia Somnifera.
01:00:28Ashwagandha.
01:00:30Recording is done.
01:00:35Lithenia Somnifera.
01:00:37Ashwagandha.
01:00:54Say 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.
01:01:30And 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.
01:02:01Mm-hmm.
01:02:02You know, in all of my film career up to there.
01:02:04Mm-hmm.
01:02:04And then all of a sudden I meet Lourdes Portillo.
01:02:07The great cook.
01:02:08The great cook.
01:02:13You brought this kind of, this kind of freedom.
01:02:17Like, it expanded my idea of what was possible.
01:02:25And we both have a very sick sense of humor.
01:02:28I see.
01:02:29No, 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 breathe 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.
01:03:21And 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.
01:04:13And we surrounded the room with their photos so that we were looking up as we worked.
01:04:21They 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.
01:06:04But 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
01:06:34and 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 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.
01:07:27I cleared my voice, I went and ripped the picture out of the yearbook and drove right to the Sal's
01:07:36Ants 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.
01:08:09Sibelius
01:08:19My daughter and I first met in 1988 at a restaurant.
01:08:26I was looking, you know, doing that, you know,
01:08:29that when you're on, like, a blind date,
01:08:31and you're, like, you're trying to find this person,
01:08:33you don't really know what they look like.
01:08:38I think I saw you, and I'm like,
01:08:40oh, my God, I think that's her.
01:08:41So afraid, and then you're sort of like,
01:08:43well, now I have to do this.
01:08:45You were stunning.
01:08:47You walked in, and I just went, oh, my God.
01:08:51It was sweet and awkward at the same time, you know?
01:08:55Yeah.
01:08:55Lived in two different levels at the same time.
01:08:58I just remember feeling like I was holding my breath.
01:09:00Everything was here.
01:09:01Everything was here, just anxious.
01:09:06You were so gracious sharing photographs.
01:09:10You know of yourself growing up,
01:09:12and I looked at that book, and I thought,
01:09:13I get to see her grow up.
01:09:15Oh.
01:09:20I always knew I was adopted.
01:09:23My parents always knew I was English and Irish,
01:09:25because that's what the document said.
01:09:26I was half Irish, half English, but mostly German.
01:09:35My German name is Kati.
01:09:39My parents were immigrants from Germany.
01:09:44I came around at four months,
01:09:46and then my brother came two and a half years later.
01:09:49He's also adopted from a different family.
01:09:52We lived in a huge house,
01:09:55acre of property in the middle of San Carlos.
01:09:57It was a really beautiful place to grow up.
01:10:01I was one of four of this family.
01:10:05The adoption wasn't something that we discussed.
01:10:09I was their child.
01:10:16When I started coming up to Mom's head,
01:10:18I felt safe here.
01:10:20So when things would go wrong,
01:10:23I found myself coming up here.
01:10:27And I felt there was...
01:10:30I just could breathe.
01:10:34You just, like, walked in this place
01:10:36as if it had always known you.
01:10:38You know, and you had always somehow known this place.
01:10:44I was excited, you know,
01:10:45because it was a door.
01:10:46It was a little bit of light
01:10:47that was starting to come in,
01:10:49and there was some connection.
01:10:55When I introduced Kathleen to my family,
01:10:59my brothers and sister were shocked.
01:11:01They never knew that I had had a child.
01:11:08So I always had this feeling like,
01:11:10I think I'm supposed to be a part of a big family.
01:11:13I just remember we were at some long table,
01:11:16and everybody was talking at the same time.
01:11:19We all understood each other.
01:11:20We knew what you were saying.
01:11:22It felt more family-like.
01:11:35Each time I gave her a hug or held her hand,
01:11:39and I just felt this was the feeling I longed for,
01:11:43for so many years.
01:11:50We saw each other for birthdays and holidays,
01:11:54and we would talk on the phone for hours.
01:12:09Ten years after finding Kathleen,
01:12:12I worked with Diane Borchelin,
01:12:15who was adopted from Korea by an American family.
01:12:21Our stories are vastly different,
01:12:23but I got a chance to just glimpse a little bit
01:12:26into the life of an adoptee.
01:12:29I think the fact that you had this experience with adoption,
01:12:32just, it provided a deeper understanding of the story,
01:12:35and that brought out nuances that I think
01:12:37might not have been there
01:12:38if you hadn't been a birth mother
01:12:40interacting with this story,
01:12:42you know, as an adoptee.
01:12:45I tried to tell my mother
01:12:46that I wasn't who she thought I was.
01:12:51I told her,
01:12:52my Korean mother is alive.
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,
01:13:05no, honey,
01:13:07that part's just a dream.
01:13:09You're a war orphan,
01:13:11and both your parents are dead.
01:13:25I would, like, watch you like a hawk,
01:13:28because I thought, you know,
01:13:30I need to know what Diane feels inside of her heart
01:13:33and how you held this process of adoption.
01:13:38You know, I think with adoption,
01:13:39there's always the question of what if?
01:13:41What if I hadn't left?
01:13:43What if I hadn't been adopted?
01:13:45What if my mother had kept me?
01:13:46What would I have turned out like?
01:13:55As I pieced together my own life,
01:13:57I asked myself the same question.
01:14:02What if I had run back to that room
01:14:04and grabbed my daughter?
01:14:07If I hadn't signed the adoption papers?
01:14:14If I had been able to bring her home?
01:14:20For an hour,
01:14:21if I would, like,
01:14:24if I had beenluered and gave her attention,
01:14:26I thought I'd rather beЛened.
01:14:26I thought I'd have done that here,
01:14:31And I was so dependent on it.
01:14:32And I was so dependent on this.
01:14:44I didn't have to say my де tester with me,
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.
01:15:13This is Phil Wright 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
01:16:10to 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.
01:17:16And first thing I see is this comment about, we 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.
01:17:33And 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 the belt.
01:18:22And my dad broke a door jam because he went for my head.
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,
01:18:44being adopted, and then being abused.
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.
01:19:24I prayed I wouldn't lose her again.
01:19:52I didn't know if, which way our relationship was going to go.
01:19:57It 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.
01:20:26Right.
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.
01:20:52To 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.
01:21:06I know it's been a long time.
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.
01:22:30To drop in with people.
01:22:35To feel close to them.
01:22:37To feel people's presence a 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 feel close to them.
01:23:26To feel close to them.
01:23:42To feel close to them.
01:23:43To feel close to them.
01:23:44To feel close to them.
01:23:45To feel close to them.
01:23:47To feel close to them.
01:23:48To feel close to them.
01:23:49To feel close to them.
01:23:49To feel close to them.
01:23:49To feel close to them.
01:23:50To feel close to them.
01:23:51To feel close to them.
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