Out on YouTube soon. A Good Run: Finding Peace with Parkinson’sBy Etana Solomon and Kathleen CampPremiere at Hopkins SchoolNew HavenSaturday, Dec. 13 For Kathleen Camp, 30 to 60 were “the good years.” “It was good. I had you. That was fun,” she says, facing the camera in the new Connecticut-made documentary A Good Run: Finding Peace with Parkinson’s. It’s not her first time speaking to the audience, but it’s the moment we understand who’s with us on the other side of the lens: Camp’s daughter and co-documentarian Etana Solomon. “And then this happened.” In 2014, Camp was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Solomon was still in college. In 2020, at age 25, Solomon became Camp’s primary caregiver. Five years later, on Saturday afternoon, A Good Run premiered at Hopkins School, showing the realities of a life with Parkinson’s, a young caregiver, and a raw take on the existential musings from either side. Hartford’s Ike Abakah and Josh Jenkins wrap the New Haven mother-daughter duo in lush aesthetics as director of photography and creative director, respectively. To make a simple shoe-tying scene cinematic, the film zooms in, getting every last grain of dirt before setting the frame in motion among scenes of Solomon running in the forest. Camp used to run, too, in a different way. As her daughter put it, she “had to outrun a life that tried to break her.” Long before her “good years,” she lived through a tumultuous childhood with fighting parents. “It was hard for me because I was the oldest,” she recalls in the film, pausing as the reality of her situation sinks in. “And I was trying to get out of there.” Once she did, she struggled with substance use, eventually landing in rehab. Solomon herself grew up protected from these stories from her mother’s past, hearing them for the first time as she began her caregiver role. In a post-screening QA Saturday with Cole Brown of Questlove’s and Black Thought’s Two One Five productions, Solomon remembered her adjustment to caregiving as a push to reorient her life. “Some people were okay with it, and we made it out.” Others, not so much. It’s no harm, no foul, Solomon said. Camp experienced a similar shakeup, noting in the film that she lost people in her life after getting sick: “I lost the strength to carry them.” Through it all, Solomon and Camp choose each other—in the movie, in the QA, and before, and beyond. Among Camp’s last words to the Hopkins theater’s audience were a call to consider “the person sitting next to you—the person who wants to be there.” Camp’s parting words in the film also highlight the present: “Don’t wait. Do what you want to do. If you get the urge to do something, do it.” Once Solomon graduated college and got a job, she was able to start taking her mother on vacation. They got four mother-daughter trips in before Covid-19 hit. These remain some of Solomon’s proudest moments. The film’s intimate, cosmic depths are matched with a dreamy score by musician Andy Sorenson, adding to the Hartford creative scene’s presence in the project. Strings, piano, and vocals create a fabric for the audience to fall into. Facing the camera with surreal blues and pinks framing the edges of her face, Solomon reminisces on a childhood full of love. “She didn’t just raise me,” she says of Camp. “She built our world from nothing.” That world grew into a safe, loving place where Solomon could draw meaning from the unthinkable. As Camp’s primary caregiver, Solomon is not only her helper and motivator but also her advocate in crucial interactions, such as with medical staff. Later in the film, Solomon credits her mother for building her up to “be the best version of myself and handle this period of my life with as much grace as possible.” To help regulate her emotions, Solomon goes on runs. She finds parallels between the extremes of her exercise practice, like running the New York City marathon, and the extremes of her mother’s daily fights through the development of her disease. “A marathon is an endurance race,” Solomon explains on screen. When it’s over, we celebrate the athletes’ hard work. Speaking in a measured, tender voice, she invites us to do the same for people with Parkinson’s. Of course, she looks forward to celebrating the end of Parkinson’s when researchers find a cure. But even without a cure, her hope remains unchanged: for “a moment of celebration for the feat that my mom endured with this disease.” Parkinson’s Disease, as A Good Run details, is more than just the tremor many people know it for. It is a nervous system disorder affecting speech, eating, sight, and hearing. People with Parkinson’s can experience convulsions, confusion, and face changes. Over the course of the QA, Solomon sometimes stepped in to repeat Camp’s answers, other times letting her mother’s words speak for themselves. At one point, I caught my gaze drifting to Solomon too early, while she was still listening intently to Camp. There was a lot said in the simple act of not looking at us, not yet. Following Solomon’s lead, I realized I could understand Camp much more than I had originally thought. “To see her do it was incredible,” Camp said of Solomon finishing the New York City marathon, which was featured near the end of the half-hour documentary. Riding the subway, walking past gritty buildings, and affixing a number to her clothes, Solomon appears to access a dimension of life entirely different from the home interiors and hospital settings making up the bulk of the film. If it’s jarring for the audience to see, one can only imagine how it feels to live it. When the topic of the U.S. healthcare system came up in the QA, Solomon let Camp speak first. “You want to say something? You’re leaning in,” Solomon said to her mother. Camp summed it up in a sentence: “It’s bad.” Because Parkinson’s is a chronic, progressive disease, Solomon added, lines are often drawn late; a patient’s functioning might be “not up to par” for many years before they receive full support. In the documentary, medical lingo and complicated documents overlap onto each other as Solomon and Camp intake the unending flow of information. Part of what Solomon aims to do with A Good Run is raise money for the Parkinson’s Foundation, which supports Parkinson’s research and provides free programs like medical practitioner trainings and a helpline open to anyone. Attendees at Saturday’s screening were directed to a QR code for donations to the organization. Solomon, who works in the nonprofit field and is now on the People with Parkinson’s Advisory Council at the Parkinson’s Foundation, understands money flow in straightforward terms. She pointed to the example of HIV/AIDS research, which took almost $4 billion to come up with a treatment to extend people’s lifespans. It’s a large amount of money, but putting a number to it made it feel graspable. It seems the research is on its way. Attendees at the screening included a speech pathologist and a Parkinson’s researcher, both of whom were optimistic about new developments in the field. Their attitude was generous, immediately offering help for Solomon’s and Camp’s specific situation. Solomon urged the audience to share their stories. The process, she said, will help them find meaning as well as heal others. Camp left the audience with one last instruction. “Just love each other.” A Good Run will be available to watch on YouTube after a few final editing tweaks. In the meantime, you can follow along Solomon’s and Camp’s journey on TikTok and Instagram at @agoodrun_. View this post on Instagram The post Peace Found With Parkinson’s appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less