Yesterday I watched the first rough cut. Though we screened a previous cut just two weeks ago to make changes for the Women In Film submission, a deadline we'd been working towards (& met) for months, it was the first time I was able to sit and watch the cut without disruption by myself. About 15 minutes in, I found myself crying. Having become somewhat desensitized to the subject matter, though powerful, it wasn’t a particularly emotive scene that brought on this surge of emotion. It was that I let myself recognize what we had achieved. We had brought an idea to life. I was overwhelmed by our progress. I was proud of our determination. I was sad that our mothers weren’t here to see it but innately conscious of the fact that we had taken our greatest heartache and channeled it towards something productive. Rough being the operative word, there is still much work to accomplish; a bit more filming to finish up and of course, more money to raise but having heard so many times, ‘get back in touch when you have a rough cut’, could it be that we finally have one? Now the question remains, does the offer still stand?

For two years it's been somewhat of a hustle for money and support. The supports come a bit easier then the money but thanks to a friend of my mother's, I was introduced to Regina Scully, a women's champion/mentor/advocate and up-and-coming force in the documentary world (If you haven't seen Miss Representation, you should). Although we didn't bump into one another on the street, our paths meeting was somewhat serendipitous. After exchanging several emails, her words of encouragement were ones I'd remind myself of on days when things didn't go our way, and though giving up has never been an option, there have been times where I've felt in over my head. Regina's support means we can keep Tina editing to meet hard deadlines, get to LA and not have to beg a friend of a friend to put us up for a night and finish filming...Though we still have a ways to go with fundraising and in post, an enormous weight has been lifted. The best way I can think of thanking her and the countless others who have gotten behind this film, is to do this subject, these women and this story, justice.

Have you seen Rebirth? It's a documentary chronicling the lives of 5 people who were directly affected by 9/11 over the next decade following the terrorist attacks; their stories juxtaposed with the rebuilding of ground zero. One of the subjects in the film is a high school student who lost his mother that day. He speaks at her funeral and the first time he utters the word 'mother', a black baby sparrow lands on his head -- you hear the entire congregation gasp. The bird rests there and he grins as he reaches for it. For a moment, the bird allows his hold and it's not until someone else goes to grab it, that it flies away. You watch him watching the bird as it leaves him and he smiles, and as the bird gets further away from him, his smile fades. I've seen the film several times, and every time I see that part I laugh and cry simultaneously. I had my brother watch it because I knew he'd think it was amazing too; he did. That made me happy.

When I was in LA filming several months back, I was laying on the beach and looked down and there was a ladybug on my towel. Just the day before Katie and I were having a similar conversation and she mentioned a story about her mother as a bumble bee. I started daydreaming and after a few minutes remembered where I was and looked down to see if it was still there. There were at least seven more ladybugs that had joined us... I'm sure it was just another ladybug, perhaps a really well-connected one who brought it's friends and had nothing to do with my mother. But that sparrow wasn't just another baby sparrow.

We all walk around with extraordinary pain, with pasts we strive to forget, with memories we struggle to remember... I think whatever you have to believe in, what gets you by or makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of another is worth believing in. So if you're motherless and find yourself in a situation with friends asking what each other's mothers do, it's perfectly okay to say, 'my mother is a ladybug'.

A woman we interviewed said she felt like '...it was never enough...'. Like whatever it was she was trying to achieve at a given moment in her life, she had to do again, and better because it just 'wasn't good enough' the first time. We are all our own biggest critics but when you don't have that constant source of unconditional support there is more room for insecurity. On the bright side, there is the freedom to NOT feel pressure to live up to the expectations, to NOT follow in her footsteps. I won't lie and say I always see the glass half full. Can I say I am stronger, more independent, more driven, more conscious, more insightful having had and loved and lost? Of course not, because it's all I know. It's all any of us know...

Next month marks two years since we started making this film. I recently corresponded with a producer who told me to keep going...that their film took around the same amount of time...that we were on track. Maybe that feeling of feeling like it's never enough has kept us going. When the rosie show put our link for the trailer on their site, we acknowledged the potential for someone to see it but know all too well, it may be months before we secure the finishing funds needed to complete the film, the way we envision it. Either way, we soldier on.

Either we're a pair of deceptive freeloaders or brilliant planners -- we've managed to travel to at least 8 cities in 3 different countries (& counting) and until now have never had to get a hotel. We've been graced with the generosity of countless amazing friends and friends of friends from all over who've given us a couch, spare bed, air mattress or bean bag to lay our weary jet-lagged heads for a night or two...or five. So after flying from Mississippi to New Orleans to LA going straight to shoot we arrived at our very first hotel stay and have never been so happy to see a Hilton in our lives.

We are officially being fiscally sponsored by Documentary Educational Resources! To make a tax-deductible donation via DER, please visit our page on their website:

http://www.der.org/donate/#the-club

it was no accident we stumbled into the office of one of our heros...for the second time...only this time, he was there. It's neither here nor there what transpired that day, it was how we got there that makes me smile. It's been a brilliantly uncalculated bumpy ride...one in which we're still unsure where or when it will end. And I'd do it all over again and again. Katie and I found a friend in a friend of a friend who once again prompted us to re-route our tracks. Triggering us to once again ask ourselves new questions that we don't have the answers to. These questions that keep arising are ones that we wouldn't be asking ourselves if we hadn't been challenged. if we weren't making our first film from two separate countries. if our mother's hadn't died when we were kids. Where would we be?

Was I destined to lose my mother when I was 11, only to shut down completely for the following ten years without the slightest mention of it occurring? To then dive into it in such a big way by making this film? These are questions that I don't have the answers to but I'm pretty sure, there are no accidents in life.

They say you gotta fake it 'til you make it...since beginning the film, I've had to somewhat 'fake' it several times. My most recent performance was at a fundraiser in the west village, to which I was graciously extended an invitation to what is sure to be an important independent film by a truly inspiring filmmaker. Though the indescribable townhouse was in my stomping ground, (not remotely reminiscent of my florescent lit-stucco-walled apartment on Bleecker) I felt somewhat like a foreigner in this sea of fabulousness but I masked my inner monologue with the attitude that I belonged in that space...and might just have gotten away with it. It's hard to explain what it feels like to be eating, breathing & sleeping an idea (that is The Club) for 17 months then walk into a room and try to articulate what it means to you while simultaneously attempting to recruit supporters. My friend Danny was a great wingman, telling me to pull my shit together as my glasses slid down my nose due to nerves and heat & ultimately, I did. Once again, that frazzled version of myself boozed and shmoozed while networking, which is an integral part of trying to get your project enough buzz so people will take notice. So like a proud parent, I talked about my baby... determined to get her done and out there.

A parent's love is, or at least should be, unconditional. It is unwavering, totally bias yet without judgement. It's really the only love you will ever experience from another human being that does not require you give something of yourself, just that you are who you are; an extension of them. There is no substitute for a mother or father's love. All other relationships cultivated are conditional; you may be my friend's daughter, my son's girlfriend or my daughter's best friend but we both know I am not your own. If and when you do feel that connection, you want to be theirs only to re-experience what you once took for granted.

So many of the women we've spoken to have expressed the need for an older wiser female in their lives and every now and again, someone steps into that role, for however long, and you get a glimpse of that feeling of home. Despite knowing it could never be enough, you run towards that mirage with the knowledge it's a dream-- you either dive in head first and stay under as long as you can or as I often do, wake yourself up. And while it's an insatiable desire for the motherless/fatherless daughter/son, it's an unrealistic pressure on that person; an incredible responsibility that you just can't expect to be fulfilled.

People come in and out of your life, sometimes pledging their loyalty, other times showing it and you revel in the fact that you have their support...for now. Though it's not guaranteed to change we often prepare ourselves for it to cease to exist because we are not yours and you are not ours. I think that's why Katie and I get along so well; the fact that she, and the women involved, get that. To know my crazy neurosis, quirks & observations are no longer swimming around in my over-crowded head; they are slowly leaking out and I'm feeling so much lighter.

Tomorrow we sit down with editors to begin to cut a few scenes. After months of cutting and re-cutting trailers and teasers on our own, we finally have mustered up enough funds to hire some profess editors to cut something for us.
First we edit then we pitch...let's just hope someone's ready to catch.

Being in Brazil, confirmed why it was so important for Katie and I to come here and document this part of the story. Family is the root of all roots. To see the closeness between this family, how they care for one another, for each other's children as their own. It's clear there is an absence within the family as would be noticed if you walked into any home where the mother was suddenly removed from the family unit; however, in a culture where the extended family is just as present as the nuclear, it makes things just a bit easier on the upbringing of strong confident women and men that were once those motherless girls and boys. As it turns out, anywhere you are, wherever you go, whoever you are, loss is a loss is a loss... we all experience losing the ones we love, it's the ones that are still here that have the power to empower you to keep your head up and just keeping swimming.