CurrentMom

Return to Zero - An important movie and a request for your help

Truth Thursday

Dear Friends, Family and Current Mom readers,

This is a request, but not for money – please keep reading to see how you can help.

As most of you know, I am a storyteller. There is one story I have told many times over in the past 15 years, which is among the saddest stories of my life.

I had a baby son. His name was Ari Joshua Stern. He was born on March 5, 1998, and he died on March 10, 1998.  The four months I spent on bed rest leading up to his birth and the many months and years I have spent mourning, grieving and trying to give voice to that experience have been one of the defining pieces of my life.  

A few months ago, I was reading a blog and it had a link to something that caught my eye – a movie that was being made called “Return to Zero.” It stars Minnie Driver, Paul Adelstein, Alfred Molina and Kathy Baker in a story about a couple facing a stillbirth. It is, according to the filmmakers, the first film ever made about stillbirth and its effects on those who go through it. 

Although my birth and neonatal death experience was slightly different, I was still so moved that this film was being made that I joined a Kickstarter campaign to help the filmmakers finish their work and submit the movie to festivals.

I contributed financially to make “Return to Zero” a reality because I know how hard it is to tell these stories. I know how important it is to tell these stories. And I know how hard it is to hear these stories.

But I have long been dedicated to telling my story because it helps me heal, and it helps the world understand how better to respond. 

I decided to take my contribution one step farther, and I have just signed up to be a Local Leader in the “Return to Zero” Kickstarter campaign. 

Nook Books, and Other Travails of Modern Life

Truth Thursday

It took me quite a while to even consider taking the plunge into purchasing an e-reader. I spent at least a year allowing the very term to wrangle its way into my brain, pondering the world-shattering question of whether I would consider using one, so traitorous it seemed. It took an impending long work trip, and several months leading up to that flight to actually sit down and contemplate which reader I might want and when I should purchase it. 

After weighing the relative benefits of the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet (giving also great consideration to the iPad), I wound up purchasing a Nook for my trip. The reasons for this particular choice were clear – while I do love my Apple products, and the iPad looks like a fun gadget to add to my arsenal, it seemed a little large and unwieldy to substitute for a book on a plane. 

Plus, I wanted to be able to say “Nook book.”

And there you have it.

I bought my Nook at a bricks and mortar Barnes & Noble, thinking that there was some noble merit in patronizing a real life store. Perhaps it would allow B&N to stay viable for a little longer. I brought it home and really enjoyed its feel and the novelty of it. I decided that I would wait for my trip to dig into a book, but I spent several weeks deciding which books I would download and bring on my trip.

The downloading was where it began to lose me.

The Flamingo Dad

Fatherhood Friday

Last weekend, The Wife and I were channel surfing and came across one of my favorite movies of all-time, The Flamingo Kid. If you're unfamiliar with the film, it stars a young Matt Dillon as the son a a blue-collar Brooklyn family in the early 1960s who lucks into a job at a posh club in Rockaway.

Enthralled by a lifestyle he never knew existed - and on the cusp of college - he moves emotionally further away from his family, especially his father. Instead, he develops a father-son relationship with the the club scion, who has taken him under his wing. (Sidenote: for similar reasons another of my favorite below-the-radar films is A Bronx Tale.)

When I was a teenager I first fell for this film. I've always had an affection for 1960s culture, especially music. As a suburban New Yorker, I could relate to the locale. Plus, at the time, I was a big fan of gin rummy, which is an underlying theme in the movie.

But the thing that probably made me really appreciate the movie was the father-son motiff. The reason I was influenced by 60s music and gin rummy was largely because of my dad, who, not incidentally grew up in NYC (the Bronx, not Brooklyn, but still) and "escaped" to the suburbs.

Beyond that, though, my teen years were pretty stressful between me and my dad. So when Matt Dillon told his father in the film to stop trying to control his life it sure sounded a lot like the conversations in my house. I related to Matt Dillon's character. We might not have been blue-collar, but we were working-class. And I was going to move up and on how I saw fit.

Fast forward to today, having watched the movie for the first time in probably 20 years. While I remember well the feelings I felt relating to the Matt Dillon character, it was his father who really resonated with me. No longer a teenager ready to graduate into the world, I'm a dad who dreams great dreams for his kids. While he didn't execute with perfection, the dad was clearly trying to do not only what he thought was best for his son, but doing it as best as he could.

As a fan of film - especially from the 60s, 70s and 80s - I have a growing list of movies I can't wait to rediscover with my own kids. They are still pretty young now but no doubt we'll have our fair share of tension as we enter the teen years. I'll be curious how I view this film then.

(photo credit: http://photos3.fotosearch.com/bthumb/CSP/CSP671/k6710257.jpg)

The Allure of the Past - A Reflection on "Midnight in Paris"

Truth Thursday

I went to see "Midnight in Paris," the recent Woody Allen movie, for a second time last week.There are so many reasons that I am so drawn to this love letter to Paris in the 1920's – the city's utter beauty, heightened by the gorgeous cinematography, being the first. As one character says of this city of my dreams, "every street is its own special art."

The conceit for the movie is that a young, blonde, California screen writer has dreams of becoming a novelist, heads to Paris, and every night at midnight, winds up being hurdled back in time and hanging out with the his idols, the literati of the era – Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein (played by the great Kathy Bates), Cole Porter, even Djuna Barnes. In conversation heavily laced with alcohol, Hemingway muses about being brave and true.

There are smaller story lines featuring Picasso and the surrealists - Dali and Luis Bunuel. Man Ray shows up to drink Calvados. We encounter T.S. Eliot, and there is a great line about measuring out contemporary life with coke spoons. Josephine Baker shimmies in an early dance scene.There is a detective who for all the world is reminiscent of Sydney Greenstreet's Ferrari  in "Casablanca." The modern day characters spend time contemplating both Rodin's sculptures and Monet's water lilies.

As a romantic, as a writer, as someone who has always thought of the 1920's as a golden era for its new freedoms, its sartorial coolness, its attitude and its intellectual and artistic output, this film is an aortic line to my heart. But I have been wondering about how it has become been such a hit with the more general public. Seeing it a second time has helped me understand.

A Royal Pain?

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: dcjohn

Unless you live under a rock, you have been unable to miss some of the hoopla surrounding the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It is seemingly inescapable: no matter what type of media I look at, I can't miss a headline (or several) of this blessed event. Somehow, the Today Show has ordained itself "Royal Wedding Central" and for the last week and a half, has several clips each hour on something wedding related.

I certainly understand the appeal: in the United States, we have no true royal equivalent (although some would argue that the way we revere celebrities might rival a royal treatment). We've had families that have come close, such as the Kennedy's, but that family didn't have the staying power of the British Monarch. So it begs me to ask the question, "Who cares?"

I think the only way that I can start to understand this question is to try to envision having a family that was untouchable. One who was so beyond ordinary people (even those in the highest tax brackets), that anything related to them brought up wonderment and spectacle. I recently saw the Oscar winning film, "The King's Speech" which shows the other side to being a Royal. In some ways, those in such high places can exacerbate some of the most ungainly human characteristics. No one wants to deal with their own "stuff" and the film highlights how those with even more to lose are more resistant to it. Through the film, I was able to have compassion to the Royal Family, who did not choose to be of noble birth.

It seems that in this way, it reminds us of all of our humanity as a link that we share. However, I wouldn't mind having my humanity without having to worry about day-to-day struggles such as being a mom, balancing work and home, and certainly finances. Although now that I think about it, I can imagine that Royals have at least the first two struggles in common...Their weddings are just one heck of a show!