Five Kids Is A Lot Of Kids

Welcome to our Monday guest post series on Parenting and Imperfection.

Let’s chat, shall we?

I don’t want to be dramatic here, but I’m certain I’m being preyed upon by ethereal forces who want me to own my feelings rather than shoving them in a box and putting that box inside another box and mailing that box to myself and, when it arrives, SMASHING it with a hammer. (Name that movie.) Surely you can understand that this constant bombardment is in poor taste on the ethereal forces’ part and bewildering on mine. Because feelings? GAH. I don’t like having them.

Yes, yes; if we don’t feel the sad feelings then we numb ourselves to the joyful feelings and blah blah blah. I want to at least give it a try. But no; the ethereal forces are having none of it.

All of which is to say, I’m very excited to introduce you to Gabriela and Evelyne Tollman, sisters and independent filmmakers who are currently raising funds via Kickstarter for their latest project and first feature length film, Secrets of an Unborn Child. They’re bringing Hollywood glamour to the Five Kids blog today, and God knows we need it, but they’re also bringing feelings, so I’m just saying… people like me (you know who you are, Ashlee), go ahead and prestamp those boxes and ready your hammer. You might need ‘em.

Or maybe, like me, you’ll find yourself putting the hammer down because their story of parenting and imperfection, sisterhood and healing, helps light a path out of the darkness.

Beth Woolsey

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Question & Answer
with Filmmakers Gabriela and Evelyne Tollman

Question: HOLLYWOOD. You live and work there. IN THE FILM INDUSTRY. I’m sure it’s all glamour all the time, but there might be teeny, tiny misconceptions about what life is like for you. I mean, I live in Portland, Oregon and yet I shave my legs every day. And my friend Gwen lives in Canada and hasn’t seen a moose in at least a week. Tell us a little bit about real life where you live. Let’s start with fill-in-the-blank: When people see Hollywood, they think _____, but really it’s _____.

Evelyne: When people see Hollywood, they think cool, cars, and chicks, but really it’s freeways, traffic, vegan restaurants, and Kale shakes for $8.

Gabriela: When people see Hollywood, they think glamour, wealth, power and celebrity but really it IS, it’s just we’re not part of it.

Question: What do you love about Hollywood?

Evelyne: That you have the beach, the mountains and downtown L.A. with Disney Hall. Yes, you can meet a lot of creative people who want to know what you’re working on, but people are pretty down-to-earth on the Eastside.

Gabriella: There is a multitude of creative people living out their dreams. The weather. The ocean. The mountains. The Murals. The mix of ethnicities, cultures and points of view. Marianne Williamson donation lectures on Monday nights!

Question: As we discussed before you agreed to do this interview, I am a giant chicken who’s terrified of tragic stories and shies away from dramas. I click the hide button every time I see a sad picture on Facebook. The four-day aftermath following my ill-advised viewing of the Titanic? I can’t even… did you know those people died?! It’s just that dramas make me feel feelings – sad ones – and I don’t like it. What do you say to people like me? Why are stories like this important?

Gabriela: Creativity has always been an act of faith for me. When I feel any fear or negativity creep in, I write about it or create something about it and that diminishes the fear. I think that’s why making this film continues to be so cathartic for me; it helped get me out of my fear.

Evelyne: I’m actually a lot like you. That’s why I push myself to the dark places. I had no idea One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was so sad. I was stunned when I watched it as an adult and still black out the ending. But then there’s my sister who can go there and gives me courage to do the same. When we sit in the pain and hold it, it makes the rest of the journey, the struggle — the freedom of Chief at the end — all the more beautiful.

Art is cathartic; I have been prompted, moved, and haunted by images in cinema in the middle of the night. The image of Steve Martin and the roller coaster in Parenthood has haunted me for years; his discomfort with his family, his need to control, and, finally, his choice to let go and enjoy the ride.

Question: Your body of work seems to focus on women. You’re two sisters working together on this project to tell a striking and redemptive story about sisterhood and motherhood. What is compelling to you about the female condition?  Why are these the stories that sing to you?

Evelyne: Coming from South Africa and being Jewish women, we were second class citizens. Women have to come together, not to compete, but to share the road. Only a sister can tell you to stop being a bitch and to stop eating so much ice cream and somehow it’s really helpful. I also think woman have to find their way back again; we want it all and something suffers. So what if we can’t have it all? That is what I think Anna and Clare realize too, is that if we can just stop doing, running, questioning and just listen, life is beautiful.

Question: Anna and Clare are the main characters in your upcoming film, Secrets of an Unborn Child. Tell us about that project. How did it begin? What’s it about?

Gabriela: Secrets of an Unborn Child was motivated by a real experience I had when, due to complications, I gave birth to my baby at 7 months. He struggled to survive, but didn’t. It was a painful and difficult experience. That’s when Evelyne and I started to write together. I was compelled to explore the theme of survival after the loss of a loved one. That we learn from every experience. That pain can be an incredible teacher. I learned not to run from pain just because it is uncomfortable. Be with it, connect with it, connect with yourself, be still; that’s when true healing can occur.

In Secrets Of An Unborn Child, the lives of two sisters intersect. Clare loses her baby, and Anna, in the midst of an emotional crisis, inadvertently abandons her child. The film follows the sisters as they overcome their worst fears and help each other rebuild their lives.

Secrets Of An Unborn Child is ultimately about overcoming tragedy and finding hope.

Question: As independent filmmakers, you have to source funds to make your work a reality. You have a Kickstarter campaign going right now. Why does making Secrets of an Unborn Child matter? And what are real ways we can help?

Gabriela: Since launching our Kickstarter we have gotten responses from many woman thanking us for having the courage to do this. For getting this story out in the open. It helps them feel less alone. Finding an outlet for pain has always helped me feel like less of a victim, less vulnerable. The pain I felt after losing my baby was overwhelming. I hope that this project can help those experiencing loss feel less alone; and let them know that some day they will feel happy and alive again.

Evelyne: To help, you can share the project with others or donate through Kickstarter. With Kickstarter, the stakes are high. If we don’t get the entire goal amount, we get nothing. We’re at $12,348. We still need $18,000 in the next 21 days to make it. No amount is too small.

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Gabriela Tollman  (Director/Writer/Producer/Actress)

Gabriela is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa and a graduate of UCLA’s theater and film department. She has been a member of several reputable theater companies and performed in many plays and independent films. She has directed over ten short films; which have played in festivals worldwide and won numerous awards. She wrote, directed co-produced and acted in THE LAST GUNSHOT, a short film that played in over 25 festivals and won several awards including The International Cinematographer’s Guild Award, which screened the film at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. She wrote and directed BIRTH OF INDUSTRY, for which she was awarded the Los Angeles Short Film Grant from Kodak, Panavision, and Filmmakers Alliance.  BIRTH OF INDUSTRY played in several festivals and was awarded the John Williams award for Visual Excellence at the Cleveland Film Festival. Her short film, YOU TURNED BACK AND HELD MY HAND screened at the Sundance Film Festival to much acclaim. Tollman is currently in pre-production for her first feature film titled SECRETS OF AN UNBORN CHILD and she is also developing the feature film THIS FEELING INSIDE a poetic, sometimes darkly humorous examination of empathy within an American family. Check out some of Gabriela’s short films.

Evelyne Tollman (Writer/ Producer/ Actress)

Evelyne is originally from South Africa, also an actress she has studied theater and performed in many plays since she was 5.  Evelyne has done over 30 plays and has worked in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has written and produced three of her own plays.  Her play THE PIG AND I was pick of the week by LA weekly. Evelyne then decided to learn the wonderful art of screenplays and  completed The Writers Boot Camp 2 year program.  She has  two more scripts in development. Evelyne’s unique voice as a writer has been compared to Terry Southern from Monthy Python and as and actress was called “standout” in her play about South Africa by the LA weekly. Her screenplay OLD TIME GIRL got honorable mention in the 2012 SUNDANCE Table Read My Screenplay contest.

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You can see all of the Parenting and Imperfection posts here.

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I’m very excited to introduce a brand new Monday series here at the Five Kids blog. I’m calling it:

Parenting and Imperfection

They say to write what you know, and I know all about being an imperfect parent. What’s even more exciting to Imperfect Me is the fact that other people seem to know all about it, too, and I am not alone. Can I get a hallelujah? AMEN.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time how to introduce you to some of my favorite writers, wild truth bringers, hilarious storytellers and friends. And then it occurred to me to just make room. Clear a space in the middle of my clutter. Invite the real friends over. The ones who don’t mind the sticky floor or the lack of a hand towel in the bathroom. Quit trying to put out engraved invitations. Quit waiting to be “ready.” And open up a place for community to gather. An imperfect, poorly swept place for us.

And so I’m very happy to introduce you to the first guest writer in our new Monday series on Parenting and Imperfection. Meet Carrie Cariello. Carrie is a blogger, a fellow mama of five and the author of What Color is Monday? How Autism Changed One Family for the Better which Parents.com called “the perfect book for autism awareness month.”  Take it away, Carrie!

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Thoughts on Futility
by Carrie Cariello

“Mom!” Charlie called down to me from the playroom. “Tomorrow is sports day at school and I need you to wash my football shirt because I wore it today. But I need it tomorrow!” And sure enough, I looked up the stairs at my 7-year old and saw he was wearing his beloved Tom Brady jersey.

In that moment, I cursed Tom Brady. And his wife, Gi-ZELLE.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, futility is defined as a useless act or gesture. As I climbed the stairs to begin the laundry, I started to tick-tick-tick off all of the futile acts or gestures in my life, things like washing jerseys two days in a row and making beds that people sleep in twelve hours later and flushing toilets no one else bothers to flush.

Exercise. For the amount of exercising I do, I am nowhere near Giselle’s long tan limbs or hollowed cheekbones. (This may or may not have something to do with my ice cream consumption.)

Arguing with a toddler about the merits of wearing underwear, cleaning dark green marker off the playroom walls. Packing and unpacking and packing the backpacks for school. Sweeping. Clipping finger nails that grow at the speed of light and putting the caps back on oozing tubes of toothpaste.

And laundry. Laundry is perhaps the most futile job there is. These people need to wear clothes every day, and they can can’t even wear the same pair of jeans a couple of times the way you and I might, because although you gave them their futile bath last night, they got futil-y dirty again today and have soup stains all down the front of themselves.

Which brings me to food. My kids love to eat, and every time I say this to someone who has the ubiquitous non-eater sitting at their table, they say how jealous they are, they ask how we got our kids to eat. I always tell them the same thing: enjoy it. Enjoy the meals you don’t have to make, the snacks you don’t have to prepare, the dishes that don’t need washing. Enjoy your sparkling kitchen that you don’t have to make a futile effort to clean nine million hundred times a day, just in time for some small person to whine “I’m hungry!”

As I dug through the hamper and piled clothes into the blue laundry basket, I thought of a conversation I had with Joe a few years ago. We were lying in bed and talking about his career and how much he loves dentistry. He turned to me, and in the soft lamplight of our bedroom, he said, “Some days I just feel like I need to do more, like I’m meant to do something even bigger.”

Friends of mine who read this blog are chuckling right now, giggling to themselves as they remember the way I described this discussion to them over lunch later that week, described how I rose up out of bed, all faded baggy tank top and indignation and roared even bigger? I made three dozen heart-shaped jello jigglers this afternoon for Rose’s preschool class tomorrow! (In certain circles, this particular dialogue is referred to as The Great Jiggler Conversation.)

Want to know what futility’s second cousin is? Resentment. (Bitterness is also hanging off of a limb on futility’s family tree like an overripe coconut, as is anger.)

Oh, sure, you could make the argument that I’m filling their healthy bodies with nourishment and growing their brains with knowledge and creating happy memories with heart-shaped gelatin. But some days it doesn’t feel that way. Some days I feel like the hamster scampering on the requisite wheel; running and running with nowhere to go and lots of clothes to fold.

Futility.

I walked into our bedroom to collect a load of towels, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something resting on my pillow. And it was this note from five-year old Rose:

I walked downstairs and got online and looked up the opposite of futility, the antonym of useless. It said meaningful, worthwhile, something of value. Not futile. Holding my daughter’s note in my hand, I started to think about all the not futile things I do; actions and deeds which mean a great deal to me. Preparing unusual dishes like kale chips for my kids who love to eat, and choosing the roundest red apples for my pink girl’s snack. Telling them I love you I love you Mommy loves you every single day.

Folding Henry’s favorite blue dinosaur pajamas so they keep his delightfully chubby body warm all night long. Quizzing Joey on his multiplication tables and seeing the slow grin spread across his face when he masters a tricky one. Reading Pippi Longstocking at the dinner table and playing Boggle on a snowy Sunday morning.

Sit-ups. (There. I said it. I like doing sit-ups.)

Sitting at my computer in the growing darkness of late afternoon, I thought back to when Jack was a silent toddler, how everything we did to try and draw words from this quiet boy felt futile, empty, useless. The sign language and the singsong voice and the exaggerated gestures, all done more please cup dada bird. Telling him over and over and over again look in my eyes Jack look at me look at me.

For days and weeks and months, those small acts of signing and singing and begging for eye contact felt pointless and ineffective. But in fact, they were teeny-tiny steps towards something important; towards helping our blue-eyed son find his voice. Slowly, like a baby bird peeking out from a delicate eggshell, he began to speak. We started to win our little boy over from autism’s firm hold, first with simple words like duck and cookie, then short phrases like bird fly and truck is big. Then, at long last, mama.

And I remember the very moment my two-year old Jack said mama for the first time like it was yesterday; the way his fine blonde hair felt under my fingertips as I washed him for the thousandth time in our worn white bathtub. In my mind, I can hear his tentative voice echo off the tiled walls in the bathroom mama water mama. Recalling this memory nearly seven years later, I thought of a new definition of futility. My definition.

Futility: small acts and gestures and tasks you repeat over and over again. At times, they will feel mind-numbing and soul-crushing and relentless. They will feel hopeless. But one day, you will wake up and realize there is purpose behind the cooking and the laundry and the nail-clipping. Behind the you can do this math sheet Jack and listen to me look at me hear me. You will see the rewards that have really been there all along; children who love and laugh and eat. Neat, trim fingernails, and a boy who resists the confines of his spectrum disorder and says mama out loud.

And with that, I got up from my computer, walked back upstairs, and put Charlie’s jersey in the washer.

Charlie & Joey ready for Sports Day

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Carrie Cariello is a fellow mama of five and the author of What Color is Monday? How Autism Changed One Family for the Better. “Raising five children would be challenge enough for most parents, but when one of them has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, the adventures become even more fascinating. In this moving–and often funny–memoir, author Carrie Cariello invites us to take a peek into exactly what it takes to get through each day with four boys and one girl, and shows us the beauty and wonder of a child who views the world through a different lens, who sees the days of the week as colors and wants to know: What Color is Monday?”

Carrie lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children. She is a regular contributor to Autism Spectrum News and has been published in several local parenting magazines. She has a Masters in Public Administration from Rockefeller College and an MBA from Canisius College in New York. At best estimate, she and Joe have changed roughly 16,425 diapers.

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You can see all of the Parenting and Imperfection posts here.

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