#bombshellfilm

Yesterday a very dear friend of mine was laid to rest. Bunny Yeager was a legendary pinup photographer who happened to be my grandmother Maria’s best friend. I was lucky enough to spend time with Bunny while I was working on a documentary about my grandmother’s life and she was an immense inspiration to me. Bunny turned the camera on herself fifty years before selfies became the norm, popularized the bikini in the United States and introduced the world to Bettie Page. She was a pioneer in every sense of the word – a courageous woman who refused to let fear, insecurity or limitation stand in her way. To pose for her was an honor and a bridging of worlds - my grandmother was one of her first models and, as it turned out, I was one of her last. Many people have reached out to me wondering how her death impacts my project, and this is my answer…

The gift of death is the realization that something new is always born from it. My project Bombshell was an incredible learning experience creatively and personally and I have no regrets about the time, energy and love I poured into it. I am keeping the Facebook page as an online record of the content created for it and am eternally grateful to each and every person who supported the crowdfunding campaign and to those who've found the project since and reached out with their words of appreciation and support. While I feel that it’s time to move on from the documentary know that the story stays close to my heart and it’s one that I believe will still be told before my own days are done. When death is seen not as an ending but a transformation, we remember that as we let go of one form another lies just beyond the horizon, awaiting its own right time and place.

Thank you to Bunny, her daughter Lisa Irwin Packard, her agent Edward Christin, and gallery owner Harold Golen, among many others, for being a part of my winding process of creativity and self-discovery. I share your pain in Bunny’s loss but am comforted by what she leaves behind- those of us who were transformed for knowing her, and the legions of fans and photographers who will continue to discover her work for generations to come.

Failure is one of those things that we try not to talk about. Like death and other losses, it's depressing, it's uninspiring, and frankly we'd prefer to sweep it under the rug. Instead we share our successes (especially online)- the best moments of our relationships, the highlights of our travels. We broadcast only our triumphs, we share just the hits. What's lost in this curation is the understanding that there are incredible blessings in failure, even besides the lessons learned and resilience gained. Since my Kickstarter campaign failed, there have been a number of these blessings- a couple of which I would like to share. Firstly, strangers have found my project and continue to reach out to me and tell me how deeply it affected them. One of these strangers is Elaine, an old friend of my grandmother's and a new friend of mine. Her discovery led to me reaching out to Miami company Midtown Video. They have continued to be an incredible supporter of Bombshell, and so donated the audio and lighting equipment that allowed me to shoot interviews last week with both Elaine and my mother Spring. Because of them I've been able to continue working on the documentary, and I am so incredibly grateful to them for that. The last gift of my campaign's failure is that tomorrow I am beginning the cross-country drive that will take me back to Los Angeles, my once and (now) future home. There I have a community of friends and filmmakers who have embraced the axis of the industry and are carving out thriving careers there. I can't wait to join them, support them and collaborate with them. The realization that I don't have to do this alone was so necessary, and yet I know that if my campaign had succeeded, this realization is one that would have taken me a very long time to reach.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that for those of you experiencing "failure" or loss of any kind, congratulations. If you can't see its gifts yet, just wait. Nothing is ever taken from us without us receiving something in return. If we can learn to look upon our losses as gains of an unknown kind, if we can turn even the valleys into great vistas... then there really is nothing to be afraid of... nothing at all that can be lost... and absolutely everything to be gained.

             When I was a kid I always gravitated to the Esoteric section of the used bookstore. As long as I can remember I've been fascinated with the occult, everything from spiritualists and energy healers to the i Ching and the tarot. I'm one of those people who simply believe unless you give them a good reason not to- so it's not such a leap to imagine me bumming around Chiang Mai a few days after my breakup, searching for a little guidance in some unexpected places. Where my search brought me to was the front door of a Russian shaman named Diana. The picture I had in my mind of our session involved incense, a short ritual... some chanting perhaps? At the very best it would bring a tangible sensation of healing, or release or relief, and at the very worst it would give me a little distraction to get through the day. The last thing I was expecting was to be told that I have a curse.

             Three hundred and eighty years ago, around five generations back (so the story goes) an English American man abused a Native American woman. The woman was pregnant at the time and both her and her child were killed. Because it was a double death, and because of their lineage, it left a curse upon the man who killed them- a curse upon me. Furthermore, the shaman said, the reason that my grandmother committed suicide was because she related to this Native American woman, and if I didn't find a way to break this curse I would pass it down to my own children. So much for that tangible sensation of relief. 

                When I left that day I went over and over the shaman's words and wrote down everything I could remember. There were a number of instances in our session where she seemed insightful and, dare I say, credible. She revealed facts about me and my life that seemed too uncanny to be a con. I thought, how easy would it be to simply discard the details that didn't add up? I could selectively filter out the curse and yet hold on to other, more inspiring anecdotes. We do it all the time in our lives- tell the story that suits the teller. Why should this experience be any different? And yet I couldn't shake what she'd said. 

                   The reason I couldn't disregard the shaman's claim was because five generations back, around three hundred and eighty years ago, my grandfather's grandmother was abandoned on the doorstep of a couple in Philly. Baby Josephine was Native American, and the Huttons raised her as their own, never knowing from who or where she had come, or why she had been abandoned. It seemed an undeniably strange coincidence- five generations, Native Americans, an unsolved mystery, and now this strange, new monkey wrench of a tale. Was it possible, I wondered, that this Native American woman who died was related to my abandoned ancestor? And in what way would my grandmother feel connected to this Native American woman- this was her husband's lineage, not her own.

              I thought I had a handle on karma, and at least a bare understanding of reincarnation- but the theory that these details hinted at was beyond me. In the same way that an emotional charge can be passed down through generations until it is healed, can our actions actually haunt our families across time and space? How does one heal a curse that is born from excruciating pain and sorrow, and atone for having caused it? I don't know the answers to these questions. I imagine some would find me crazy to even ask them... and yet, doesn't the whole known world rest upon the foundation of the unseen? Even as our earth hurtles through space, and our atoms leap in perpetual motion, do we not perceive a stillness and solidity where none exist?

                 It may be crazy to entertain the notions of those existing outside of science and rational thought, but it is folly to disregard the unknown because we haven't discovered its secrets yet. Wherever our roots began, however our patterns of thought and behavior and belief were established, wherever the bundle of consciousness that we call ourselves was born, it doesn't matter. Because the journey begins right where we are. That is the place that we have power, and is it the only time that we can provoke change. Let others have their science; I will keep my curse. I will let it be a reminder that I am inextricably connected to those that have come before me, and that the future of my family is held in my own two hands. I will let it advise me to be gentle and have compassion for others, and also to forgive those who cannot.  And then, suddenly, I get it. The curse is not a curse at all, but an opportunity to transform what I have been given into the very thing that I seek. And just like that I know... the curse itself is actually a gift, and the shaman a healer after all...

AFTERLIFE

          I speak through sickly slackened time 

From space that clears all past confines

Ages cast unto their prime

Cradling truth both mine and thine/

          My name was Maria, I have a story to tell.

Myths I will try my best to dispel

How all you see and hear's a shell.

How all your life you alone compel/

           The prisons you so long to break

Memories, thoughts, beliefs forsake

They are the seeds that co-create

The strangers that you meet as fate/

           Sensations oft perceived as cold

Fall well within your own control

If only you would be so bold

To unreel outworn stories told/

           Not that I boast no trace remorse

You can complete the class but not the course

Then quit the course but stay the school

Re-shuffle the deck once more choose Fool/

           So many things I do not know

How to hold love close and yet let go

How to rise and rise without the fall

How not to care if I'm fair et al./

           Yet I'm well rehearsed when flesh expires

And I know quite well no angel choirs

No illumined tunnel

No searing fires/

            More like, a bath with its warm embrace

The ease of yielding a gravid suitcase

And all those fears with joy replaced

As each tiny cell is imbued with grace/

           See the soul has no commanding force

It flows out and in all traces source

Yet all forget and suppose divorce

Scream and cry til their throats grow hoarse/

            It doesn't have to be this way

You can change the record this very day

Rewrite the character you do portray

Right all the wrongs you only thought you made/

            But please, don't bother to listen to me

Choose your own adventure... by all means

Just remember this, you hold the key

And at any moment can choose free./