05.05.07
Twists and Turns (or what the **** is going on…)
Life is full of strange twists. I just recently saw the movie “Following Sean.” It’s about a filmaker’s reconnection with a young man who was the subject of an award winning film he made in college. Sean was a 4-year old living upstairs from Ralph Arleck in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco in the late 60s. The original film is a series of “interviews” with him. “Following Sean” is a look at how his life turned out many years later. There were many predictions made, by people who had seen the original film, about how Sean would turn out. As someone who raised her children in a very unorthodox environment, I was very anxious to see the film. I had mixed feelings about it and got into a very interesting conversation about it with my daughter. The next day, I still had our conversation on my mind all day. When I checked my e-mail, I found that someone had commented on my blog entry about living in the artist commune, Project One, in San Francisco. I also found an e-mail from an old friend who happened to live in a sister commune, Project Artaud, at around the same time. I hadn’t heard from him in a while and was a little struck by the serendipity of his timing. However, I was completely blown away by the comment which was from a woman who actually lived at Project One when she was 9-years old. I immediately wrote back to her and have been fascinated by her own struggles throughout her life as a result of her experiences. I told her that many of us who raised children during those wild times made mistakes and might do things differently today, but all in all loved our children and thought we made the right choices at the time. We were running from what we saw as an oppressive society and looking for more freedom, giving that freedom in turn to our children. A lot of good things came out of that time, and all of our experiences made us who we are today. I keep wondering why I’m having these connections with that time all of a sudden. What is the message here? Once again, I wanted to share it with X, but he’s not here to enjoy the irony of it all. Hopefully he’s chuckling about it wherever he ended up. I hope I can keep the connection with this woman. She is a wonderful artist. I’ve enjoyed our e-mail conversations so far and hope to have more.