Today I watched for several hours as a friend edited a clip from “Gunsmoke,” using iMovie software on a Macintosh. We took eighteen minutes of film and selectively trimmed the footage down to a clean four minutes. Film is all editing. We worked together because I have fallen behind in our class and he was tutoring me. But I made the content decisions–what to leave in and what to leave out. Amazing the different choices I made compared to him. My inclination is to let faces tell a story probably more so than dialogue. Facial gestures reveal so much while words disguise true motive so well. At least that’s been my experience in real life (see previous post). We worked compatibly and quickly finishing the assignment in a few hours.
While working he showed me his leg that had a blood clot. He had spent the night in the emergency room the other evening because the infected area became worse quickly. This man’s face looks as if perhaps he was born preemie; petite nose, pale skin, and thin as a rail. Perhaps preemie but for sure heroin addict for 13 years, which messed up his veins so blood does not flow so well. That and smoking a few packs a day for 25 years. He decided after ten months sober to stop taking his blood thinning medication, accounting for an arrival to the emergency room. Amazing how after coming so close to near death, people early in recovery start making decisions as if they have any idea how to run an authentically functioning and healthy life.
He said he had a golden vein just on the inside of his hip. While describing how easy he could shoot heroin, “without even looking,” he jabbed the area several times in the air. Unconsciously while we worked his hand rested there. Today he is articulate and talented, but I wonder. Soon he will graduate from Walden House, an in-patient recovery center here in San Francisco. For now I’m grateful that his sobriety program brings him to class alert and helpful. Will be fascinating to see what kind of film he makes as we progress in the semester. We have two and a half months left.
Makes me wonder, too, what might happen to any parent’s child. What was my friend like as a child? Do or did his parents suffer from addiction, too? The twin components of addiction are simply a biology that craves a substance to numb reality and the mental obsession to satisfy that craving. And clearly along the way emotional imbalances develop. Numbing out to the world does not create a bedrock for healthy relationships.
Parenting is a crapshoot then. Whoever gives birth to the child I will raise, will ideally be free of genetic addiction. Although that seems impossible, why not shoot for the stars? Still, what might happen is completely out of my control. If my child does become an addict, I will at least have a few joyful recovery tips I can offer. Get back to me in 13 years when he or she approaches teenagehood–a common time for substance abuse to begin. Most experts say that a consistently loving, stable home can play a significant environmental influence on a child’s propensity to fall into addiction. So then I will strive to become the very best parent I can.
Posted by karolinawrites 