The world loses many souls, every minute of every day, every one of them special to someone. But yesterday, we lost one who was special to so many, some without them even realising it.
Unless you've been under a rock for the last 48 hours, you'll know that yesterday, the hugely talented Nora Ephron died. (Incidentally, I really shouldn't have to link that name. Everyone should know who she is. But just in case you need a reminder... there it is.)
The internet has been full of tributes for this amazing woman - everyone from Meryl Streep to Meg Ryan to Mindy Kaling has praised not only her talent, but also the fact that she was a wonderful person and friend to many. Many people I know have, via Facebook, twitter, their own blogs paid tribute to a woman they have never met, but who somehow touched their lives. It speaks volumes that so many people feel the need to do this.
Personally, my admiration for her Nora Ephron's talents began as an eighteen year old, when I first saw "When Harry Met Sally". It is a movie that I can watch over, and over, and over... and every time I learn something new. I was (and still am) a hopeless romantic, but also an independent, curious, funny, quirky, intelligent young woman, who always had the feeling of being out-of-place with my peers. Somehow Nora made me feel ok with that, even when those around me belittled me for my unwillingness to conform to their notions of how I "should" be. My love affair with her portrayal of interesting women I could relate to continued with "Sleepless in Seattle", her many essays and contributions to The New Yorker and of course, the now quite dated, but still brilliant "You've Got Mail".
I openly credit Nora Ephron with being a major factor in my on-going love affair with New York City. It is a central character in three of her films and boy, did she know how to show it off at it's best.
From one of the earliest scenes in "When Harry Met Sally", when Sally drops Harry off at the Washington Square Arch, to the final scene in "You've Got Mail", when Joe meets Kathleen at the 91st St Garden in Riverside Park; Nora showed her New York City - a place of hopes, dreams, creativity and love - and one with which I fell headlong into love.
My first trip to New York City, in 1995, was a pilgrimage to all the places Nora had introduced me to on the big screen. Washington Square Park, The Empire State Building, Katz's Deli... all were visited and various pieces of movie dialogue were repeated over in my head as I did a little inner jig of joy that I was in such a city. It was a long way from the boring suburbia of sleepy little Adelaide, I can tell you.
Probably my most vivid memory was of my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nowadays I can spend hours scouring every last inch of the place, but back then, in all honesty, I had one sole purpose for going there. I wanted to go to the Sackler Wing, walk alongside the Temple of Dendur and re-enact the scene from WHMS where Harry informs Sally that "for the rest of the day, we are going to talk like this... waiter there is too much pepper on my paprikash, but I would be proud to partake of your pecan piiiieeee". Since I was travelling solo, this scene was re-enacted solely in my head, but I'm sure the facial expressions I was pulling and the fact I was shifting positions to play both the Harry AND Sally roles, was a dead giveaway to my fellow museum-goers.
I was still a little green in those days, so wasn't game enough to go to Katz's Deli and re-enact the fake orgasm scene. I did however, spend a joyful few hours at the Shakespeare & Co bookstore on 79th and Broadway, where I kept looking to see if any cute men were "staring at me in Personal Growth". (Sadly, that didn't happen)
One of the many people to pay tribute to Nora Ephron in the last couple of days was her friend, Ariel Levy. She wrote:
"One of the reasons you can watch "Sleepless in Seattle" or "When Harry Met Sally" over and over again is because not only are they funny, they are profoundly reassuring. Ephron's voice was funny, frank, self-effacing but never self-pitying, and utterly intimate."
I find it endlessly reassuring to sit down for a couple of hours and watch either of those films (or "You've Got Mail"). I know exactly what's going to be said, but each time I hear the words, or see a familiar location pop up on the screen, I am at once calmed, reassured, energised and filled with joy that I have gone through situations similar to these characters and moreover, been to the places they're at. As Meg Ryan, the heroine of all three of those films wrote:
"We pictured ourselves inside her dreams and they became ours. All wisdom, wit and sparkle lights, what a treat she was, what a bless. I marvel again and again, what a life... to have created a simple happiness in people, to have added to the sum of delight in the world."
Last year, when I celebrated my fortieth birthday in NYC, we had lunch at the Loeb Boathouse. My birthday companions mostly remembered it from an episode of Sex & The City, but I remember it from that hilarious scene in WHMS where, upon hearing of Sally's breakup with Joe, Marie pulls out a card index box and starts leafing through to find a suitable replacement boyfriend for her. "He's married? [folds corner of the card and puts it back] Hmmmm..."
That day, I pictured myself in that scene. My friends who would rack their brains and contact lists to attempt to find me a man. How it would play out, as we sat at our table overlooking the lake. And it filled me with delight.
As I've moved more and more towards writing the last few years, I've looked to Nora Ephron's work as a standard to which I aspire. Her writing was natural, intelligent, funny and observant and her characters were interesting, well rounded and just quirky enough to identify with. They also (primarily) had one over-riding quality which I think the world sorely needs right now... they were hopeful. Hopeful that the world could be made better. Hopeful that love was out there. Hopeful that the good guy (or girl) would win out in the end. Some people might think this is a terribly naive way of viewing the world, but I think this is the way the world needs to become. We all need to be more curious, more compassionate and more open to love.
I've always thought that I'd like my life to mirror that of a Nora Ephron character. Or a combination of characters. But in some ways I think I already do, and that's not so much because I try to be like a particular character, but because Nora wrote them as real people. People like us. We all know a Sally, or a Marie or a Harry or a Joe (F-O-X). We all are one of them.
That was her gift, and what an amazing one it was.
So thank you, Nora Ephron. Thank you for gifting the world with your work. This small-town girl, for one, is truly grateful. If it wasn't for you, I might still be there.
x
Had an email from one of my friends on Friday with the subject line: "Am Terrible Friend".
The message read: "Happy Birthday for Wednesday! You can call me P... oops not sure that was funny."
LMAO.
Bless.
Well, I had my first audition in, ummm, years (!) yesterday. I was really nervous. REALLY nervous. Like shaking nervous. Haven't felt that nervous in years. But I used those nerves to help my character and ended up doing a kick-ass monologue. Felt good.
I made it to the callbacks (they took about 8 of the 20 auditioned), but then that's where it fell apart a little... we were put into groups of 4 or 5 and given the first scene of the play to present - with about 30 mins to do so. The producer and the two pre-cast actors wandered around giving advice and observing how we worked. The group I had was nice and had some good ideas, but I don't think we were the most imaginative bunch... but we did ok. I always find those type of callbacks difficult - I know it's more a chance for the director to see how you work with others, but when you have an actor who blocks you completely for part of the scene, it's not ideal! I should've just moved my chair, but that would've distracted from the fact he was speaking at the time.
Needless to say, I got a text message from the director this morning (he's also a friend, so has my number), to say I didn't get the role. I was expecting not to get it. In fact, when I was out with friends last night and we were playing our version of the Clinker game (where you ask a question as you're choosing a Clinker from the packet - if it's red the answer is no; yellow is maybe; and green is yes) and I asked if I would be successful in the audition. I bit into the Clinker and it was red - no!! I know it's ridiculous to base things on a game played with sweets, but my intuition was correct!
Looking back, the other thing I think worked against me (besides that blocking gaffe), was that I didn't gel with the producer - in fact I found her quite prickly... and I got the impression she didn't think much of me either! So maybe that's an upside to not getting the role.
I guess that's just the nature of this business. There's a lot of rejection. The director did say he thought that my monologue was one of the best of the day and that his not casting me had nothing to do with my ability, but to do with the balance and fit of the overall cast. Which could be true, but could be just him blowing smoke... unfortunately my nature is to believe the latter and that my work in the callback was just crap.
But I know I did a kick ass monologue and I'm happy with that.
x
Yesterday, I turned 41. Yoiks. 40 I could cope with. 41 is a whole other age to cope with. It's a march towards 50 - not an age I want to contemplate heading towards.
I took myself off to the movies in the morning - to see Emilio Estevez's film 'The Way'. Martin Sheen, James Nesbitt, Deborah Kara Unger and a brilliant Dutch actor I'd never seen before, with the delightful name of Yorik van Wangeningen. It was a really beautiful film. I like the way Emilio Estevez's movies concentrate more on the characters themselves rather than using them to drive the plot. It was quite a spiritual film - perfect for my mood yesterday, which was quite introspective.
After an afternoon spent re-reddening my locks, I met up with a few friends for some gingerbread martinis at my favourite city bar. A few too many were consumed, so much so that I had to get off the tram home because I was feeling a little woozy! I ended up walking the rest of the way home (about a 45 minute walk), which helped, but I'm glad I had the day off today to recover!
Thanks to the powers of facebook, I had some 90-odd messages of birthday wishes from various friends. I also had a bunch of voicemails, emails and text messages too, which was lovely. Even my brother remembered to call me and he's hopeless at remembering my birthday!
However, in typical 'me' fashion, I'm finding it difficult to focus on the fact that almost 100 people thought of me and took time to message me yesterday and instead I'm being eaten up by negative thoughts about the friends who didn't. A few really good, close friends whose birthdays I always remember and who I expected to at least send me a text message or email, haven't done so and it hurts. Does this make them any less a friend? No, I guess not. It's just a birthday after all. I'll get over it eventually. But it still hurts.
In the meantime, this quote just popped up in my inbox.
Apt.
Yesterday I took the time to do one of the things I like best to do, which is go to the movies. I saw a movie which inspired me and that will help me to focus away from the disagreeable surprises of friends not remembering my birthday.
Onwards and upwards.
I have an audition monologue to work on... best I get back to it.
x
Yes, it's been a while. I've been a little busy with other blogs the last few months, namely the one I started to chart my progress Walking In This World and my One Line A Day blog. That one, I'm pleased to report gets updated on a daily basis. Probably because it only requires one line. Or a photo. Short and sweet. I always feel like this blog deserves more, probably because I've had it for so long and used to write so much on it. Anyway. It is what it is and I'm not going to get stressed about not writing it.
I've just noticed a monster spiderweb going across the outside of my study window. It takes up a good corner of it - almost like a curtain. I'll add that to my list of things to do today... the last thing I want is a spider creeping in the window or through a vent. Mind you it's too cold for the windows to be open anyway. Melbourne is very deceptive like that. For instance, the sun is shining and the skies are blue today, yet when I opened up the windows to let some fresh air in, I was hit by an icy blast. According to the woman on the radio it's about 12 degrees. Brrrrr.
I've just noticed a second cobweb. Jeez. Time to get out there with the broom. The windows could do with a good clean too, but that ain't gonna happen in these temperatures.
So. What have I been up to? A bit. It dawned on me this morning that it is exactly a year ago today that I hopped on that plane to NYC for the mother of all 40th birthdays with my friends. How bloody depressing that I'm now sitting in my pjs, typing this blog, procrastinating on doing the housework and trying to work out why I seem to be perpetually broke.
Snap out of it m_m. You're better off than most.
I've just come back from 5 days in Tasmania with a couple of friends, both of whom are off to the States shortly (one for a couple of months, the other to live) and I think that's depressing me. I just heard from another friend who is moving back to the UK for 6 months today and a few other friends are headed off (or already on) big overseas trips, while I seem to be in a constant state of debt.
Sheeesh. Wallowing in self-pity, much? I'm surprised if anyone's still reading this. Please accept my apologies and go and pour yourself a large glass of wine, while I give myself a quick slap upside the head and take a reality check.
Anyway. That's enough from me in my present mood. Think I'll go and do a spot of dusting and hoovering and see if that improves my foul mood. I'll return again when I've got something a bit more positive to say.
In the meantime... my gossip tip for the day:
I swear Kate Middleton is preggers. That blue coat she had on the other day only enhanced the burgeoning baby bump. She's been wearing spanx at the other Diamond Jubilee events, but mark my words - an announcement will come from the Palace in the next couple of months.
You heard it here first, kids.
