Although It Wasn't Cannes -

What happened was this: I had sent my screenplay into yet another competition. This time, it was a film festival in Los Angeles -- the LA Femme Film Festival. It cost quite a bit to enter, but I was impressed to do it anyway. Films by women and/or about women. I fit both requirements. 

 I forgot about it. Once in awhile the thought would intrude; I knew announcements might be made in October. On 9 October, I retrieved a phone message from my answering machine congratulating me on being a finalist in the screenplay category. One of ten finalists. The email that followed was meant for a different category, so that confused me. I made several calls to the festival office hoping for clarity. I called my son, Jamie, seeking some kind of sense to the thing. He looked up the festival, told me it appeared prestigious, congratulated me, and told me that even though I couldn't get out to LA it was great to be a finalist. Okay. I didn't spread the news around. I needed to absorb it. On Tuesday morning, now the 13th of October, I sat up in bed and asked myself when the hell I expected this to happen again. Given my age, and the slow way life often works. I knew I couldn't afford to attend from Thursday to Sunday. But I figured I could manage Friday night to Sunday night -- see some of the films, meet the people and attend the awards ceremony. And that's exactly what I did.

The Cheaptickets hotel wasn't really cheap although it felt that way.  But it was only a mile to the venue.  It was late when I arrived, so I went to bed.  In the morning, I walked out and found a Starbucks where I had breakfast.  Then I went off to the festival which was being held at the Renberg Theatre.  A charming place with two theatres actually and a delightful courtyard.  In an adjacent building was a gallery and offices.  The complex was the Gay and Lesbian center, a fact which had nothing to do with the nature of the film festival.  I was greeted warmly by the folks running the festival, given my VIP pass and the program for the remainder of the weekend.  I saw a couple of short subject films and then a feature which was a horror movie.  I don't care for horror films, and this particular one was reminiscent of every other one I'd ever had the misfortune to see.  But this was followed by a three hour seminar on how to pitch your film.  That part was extremely interesting, and at the end of the three hours I walked away with the peculiar knowledge that one pitched oneself -- they have to fall in love with you before they fall in love with your film.  The second important ingredient is luck and/or nepotism.  I was on over-load by then, so I went back to the hotel, attempted to arrange my limited wardrobe so I'd be cooler (it was 95 degrees in LA and I'd arrived from a snowstorm in Massachusetts).  
I grabbed my camera and walked to Hollywood Boulevard where the Walk of Fame began.  Well, it occurred to me that getting to LA again might be a remote idea.  So I snapped pictures, and was delighted to find myself in front of the Chinese Theatre.  I was, for an hour and fifteen minutes, a tourist.

A friend from college days with whom I'd kept in touch over the years picked me up at 6:00.  We drove through Beverly Hills and Brentwood to the apartment where he lives with his second wife (his first wife, also a classmate of mine, had died several years ago).  His daughter was there also.  She and my oldest son played together as kids.  And she is a poet also.  So it was great to renew friendships. A terrific visit.  

On Sunday, after my Starbucks breakfast, I checked out of the hotel leaving my little suitcase with the front desk.  I was taking the Red Eye back to Boston that night, and didn't want to shlep the suitcase around all day.  I was at the festival in time to see several films.  At 3:00 I sat in the courtyard at an umbrella table waiting for another friend from the past.  Steven was my star actor at the Boston Children's Theatre years before.  Now he is a film maker, actor, writer in Los Angeles.  We had a lovely reunion, sitting in a coffee shop catching up on each other's life.  This visit also gave me the inspiration to think about making my movie myself -- well, with a team of folks who know how.  It is not an impossibility.  Although being currently unemployed -- well, the important thing is to keep the thought perculating, sending out positive vibrations.  Stranger things have happened. 

The Awards evening was charming; cameras clicking away; celebrities being honored along with several awards to the film makers and screen writers.  I didn't win in my category -- screenplay -- but it was a winning weekend nonetheless.  My screenplay has credentials.  And even though it wasn't Cannes -- I was there.

A Cuppa

This is how is happened: I had returned from Pete's Trip. (Wanderlust - March 2009) Somehow -- I don't remember how -- I learned of an organization called Women Welcome Women World Wide. The 5 W's have strict rules about only spending a night or two in the home of another member, but it's meant to have a welcome ready in various parts of the world. I have never used the opportunity myself, (though I'd love to have traveled that much!), but have welcomed folks traveling into my residence city. My apartments have been too small for overnight guests who are not old friends or relatives. (air mattresses?) But I took a charming lady with purple hair, newly arrived from Australia, for a day in Manhattan. I've had dinner with a traveling group of 5 W members in Boston. I've email-chatted with many members. One day (2004 maybe?) while I was living in the NYC area and working in Manhattan, I looked up 5 W news on the internet. There was a request from a member visiting from the UK for someone to spend a couple of hours with her in Manhattan. Her husband was attending a conference that afternoon in Princeton, NJ. Instinctively I responded -- "I can do that." So we agreed to meet at around 3:30 pm in the lobby of the office building where I worked. It was in the East Village, so I anticipated a great walking-tour around the neighborhood.

That day it poured. Not rain -- pouring rain. My guest's name was Jan; I waited in the lobby holding a flower so she'd know who I was (I think it was a daisy? oh m'gawd!). Jan arrived in her windbreaker and her trainers -- soaking wet. We chatted for a few minutes. She was shivering. So I hurried her off to a little tea/coffee place on MacDougall Street called La Laterna. We sat down near the fireplace and ordered a pot of tea. We chatted as though we had reunited after many years; two strangers with instant recognition of each other. By the second pot, we had done the biographies, the major history, and were up to the hopes and dreams. By the end of the second pot, it was almost 8:30. Jan tracked down her husband, and invited me to have supper with them. I declined since I had to get back to Fort Lee and it was a "school night." We went to the subway, and before I could get her a ticket, she'd bought one from some guy for half-fare and was on the other side of the turnstile by the time I got up to the ticket machine. On the train, this uncommon woman told me she'd be traveling alone with backpack into Asia (I think that's right) and had never done such a thing before. Neither had I. We were both very impressed at the concept. I walked her to her hotel and headed for the bus station. We promised to keep in touch. Don't we usually say that?

We did. Email is a wondrous thing. A couple of years later we met again and had supper at a little Italian restaurant on Ninth Avenue. We talked and talked. Jan wanted to get together Sunday evening before she and John headed for the airport. I was chairing an evening of play readings -- the Carnegie Collaborative reads plays by playwright alumni of Carnegie Mellon University. She said they'd love to attend. I warned her that we sat on folding chairs in a dusty studio. She was not deterred. She and John arrived with their luggage and stayed through Act I, leaving only because they had a plane to catch. They were charming and genuinely pleased to have shared part of the evening, never having attended a reading before.

That was probably 2005. In July, 2006, I moved back to Beverly, MA, and became a "Temp" again. Jan and I stayed in touch; she traveled to Vietnam where she worked in hospital helping little children. Among other awesome trips. What an inspiration! I directed plays in community theatre. She thought this so creative and exciting. The next time we met face to face was Spring 2009, when her son ran the Boston Marathon. I was so happy to be able to give Jan and John a tour of the North End (in the rain!) and an impromptu visit to a very special art exhibit in a church on Newbury Street. The next day they came to Beverly, and we toured Newburyport and Gloucester and drove around the North Shore. In October, Jan returns to Vietnam and to the Children's Medical Center there. Then she and John will tour China. I love hearing about her trips. And she was so supportive when I took my 6 day birthday holiday in Italy. She phones me and has been an excellent friend through my daughter's surgery. It's my plan to go to England next Spring to see them there.

I do not exaggerate the importance of this friendship, serendipitous as it was from the start. I have had very close friends though not many "girl friends." Most live in other states; I've renewed friendships with a couple here in Beverly and they've been great. What's interesting to me is that I know my friendship with Jan is unconditional. Maybe it's easy to be that way at this distance. I don't believe that's the reason. I have/had a friend of 19 years; a dear lady who -- after one not-so-pleasant a dinner meeting, just walked away. Not a word. Friends from the workplace from which I was laid-off in May have vanished. What's that about? A childhood friend did the same thing a number of years ago because she didn't believe that Pete had given my son and me the trip abroad. "People don't do things like that," she said. How sad for her to believe that. How lucky for me to have known that.

Anyway. I sat in a small cafe the other day and had a cup of tea. A cuppa. And I thought of Jan. People touch our lives. How great is that? I was impressed to write about it. Thanks for listening.

(with Jan and John in Boston)

At Wingaersheek

And all things hushed. Yet even

in that silence a new beginning,

beckoning, change appeared.

........Rainer Maria Rilke,

Sonnets to Orpheus

We went to Wingaersheek Beach late this afternoon. The tide was out -- a marvelous event at Wingaersheek. You can walk a mile out to sea on the sand bar that appears. Clea, my daughter, wanted especially to go. Few people were there at 4:00; the sun was soft as was the cool breeze. The sky was wonderfully blue. Perfect. We saw a very large schooner pass on the horizon; and behind it, a smaller boat with black sails. Like a mystical pirate vessel. We walked the sandbar, then settled down on the same huge rock plateau we've always called "our rock" since the kids were small.

DJ (the 14 year old) was moody and itchy; he doesn't know how to be without his friends or his X-Box. Keira (almost 5) had scraped her knee so was being tragic. Clea was thoughtful; her surgery coming up next Tuesday. I settled my focus on the lighthouse at the end of the mainland, and the slow incoming tide. There seemed to be an unexpected silence. As though I were suddenly inside a bubble that closed out all sound. I felt something shift. Something changed. I know it happened; I can feel it now so many hours later; I don't, however, know its name.

Do you recognize that hushed moment-- that instant stop, as though there had been a minuscule break in a phone connection followed by a different voice picking up the earlier conversation. Extremely odd, but not disconcerting. I recognized a similar event recently -- actually several events -- causing the same effect. People have appeared out of my past; serendipitously. A couple were folks I haven't thought about in years, but seemed to come around a corner as surprised to see me as I was to see them. Each had a message for me though not realizing they were delivering one. (confused yet?) One is someone I have thought about often for many years; a dear, old friend and colleague. He may or may not realized he had a message he was delivering. Possibly I, too, am a messenger in this case. But with each re-meeting that stopped moment occurred. And that shift. Ever so slight, its impact will last for my forever. It may have to do with my work, with my intentions, with my journey. I don't know yet. But I feel the change coming. And I know it's a positive one.

It's been a difficult year in so many respects. And I imagine there will be more difficulties ahead before the radio plays Auld Lang Syne. But I know all will be well. I know something new is stirring, as though the Wingaersheek sand has touched the smallest spot and has begun a pearl. (that reads rather corny to me, but I'm going with it anyway.)

I have always believed that we are given a certain number of people in our lives. They come, they stay, they leave, we leave. But if we have unfinished business, if the purpose of our knowing each other hasn't been resolved, we will meet again. So the adventure continues and can't be forced.

The difference is palpable, if only to me. Perhaps I need to walk Wingaersheek again. And again. Remembering Rilke:

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

Sur La Plage!

"There's no saying
Who may be playing
With you sur la plage.
A knight who's left behind his charger
May call you "ducky"
Won't you be lucky?
In the ocean You'll find emotion
May play you a funny game
Sur la plage, sur la plage
Ev'ryone looks the -
Ev'ryone looks the -
Ev'ryone looks the same"
...................................from THE BOYFRIEND

We drove to Old Orchard Beach in Maine last week. To celebrate my daughter Clea's birthday. None of us had been there before. We love to go to Maine, and do so often. It's a short trip with lots of different attitudes. We like York a lot, and have gone since my kids were very little. Long Sands Beach is grand, and the waves are wonderful. There's the lighthouse of course; Nubble Light. And Short Sands Beach is in the beach town which boasts -- along with a variety of crap traps -- a wonderful 1950's style (remnant?) luncheonette that has a soda fountain and taffy machines creating the candy right in the store front windows. The Goldenrod actually opened in the 1890's, but the shop was rebuilt and feels very 1950's to me. And, as I've mentioned at other times, I love Ogunquit where I walk the Marginal Way, and enjoy some wonderful little restaurants and craft shops.

Old Orchard Beach is carny. Helped along by the Playland Amusement Park in the middle of the little village. The residential areas on the way to the beach town are really charming; the houses with gorgeous little gardens, and a sense that all is always good. The beach area attracts many families. Very little diversity which always
disappoints me, being a New Yorker, except in the social mix. Bikers, RV'ers, Canadians, and a mixed-bag of families. It's always remarkable to Clea and me when we are conspicuous walking down the street. Only because we've been a family since 1970; not much has changed around us. The beach itself is quite something; seven miles of water front with relatively clean, white sand. It's not San Tropez; but it serves. The food is mainly fried everything -- what one might expect at an American seaside gathering place.


We stayed one night in a less than auspicious motel. In the morning I walked down to the beach at six o'clock; a number of people were walking or jogging. It was a glorious morning -- not terribly warm yet; a good breeze; no humidity. When ever I walk a beach in early morning I spin back into my childhood at Rockaway beach; back into the early years of Massachusetts era when the children would be sleeping in the Anchorage Motel and I'd walk the beach to see the sunrise and listen to my phantom voices in the waves This walk began that way. And then a peculiar thing: these guys bringing chairs down to the sand from the rental bungalows at that early hour. Guests at the bungalows -- claiming their space for their day at the beach. It reminded me of the urban dwellers in the north east who shovel a parking space and hang on to it with chairs or barrels. Seven miles of sand. Room for all?

Maybe it's because photos of these places are often "old photos" of these places. So one expects the charm we see in the movies. "On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City...." with Fred Astaire or Judy Garland or Gordan MacRae --
Happily the children don't have this frame of reference, so for them it was a fun, carnival kind of place, where a mean grandma refused to buy them fried dough.

Go figure......!

Fictional Affections

On one of those Facebook challenges where you type something about yourself that no one knows, I revealed that I get crushes on fictional detectives. It was to my friends, old and new, an amusing thought. I was very serious. My first passion was Sherlock Holmes as portrayed by Jeremy Brett. Drawn to the brooding genius, I suppose, the same way I was drawn to male vocalists with scratchy, husky singing voices. Sherlock was soon usurped in my affections by Chief Inspector Morse, created by Colin Dexter. I read all the books, watched all the PBS episodes on Mystery! and wasn't really sure if it was Morse I had a crush on or John Thaw who created him "in the flesh." This romance went on for years. When
Dexter saw fit to kill Morse off, I was devastated. When PBS showed the final episode, with John Thaw's Morse being carried off at the end, I literally sobbed. It might seem inane, but I had lost a dear, old friend. Matters were made worse when John Thaw passed away not long after. Ah, Mickey, I thought, reaching for another tissue -- get a life!!

Incorrigible, I picked up a book by Daniel Silva called A DEATH IN VIENNA. The protagonist is, of course, a detective/secret agent called Gabriel Allon. Allon is an Israeli agent whose cover is a brilliant art restorer living in Venice. Maybe "Venice" was the magic word; maybe Israeli agent -- whatever. Allon is again a brooding, remarkable talent in all respects. So I became instantly smitten, and read all the books -- last to first - before realizing what I'd done. When the next book came out, I put it aside and re-read all the books starting with the first one. Working my way up to the most recent. Mr. Silva seems to have a new release annually, and I order early, The arrival of the book is an event -- the way HARRY POTTER used to be. Now, since no film or TV movie has been made, I have the luxury of casting whomever I choose in the role of Allon.

Now I have a conundrum! When I returned from Venice in March -- doesn't that sound amazing? -- a friend told me about the books of Donna Leon. I researched them (wanting to read the first one first this time) and read DEATH AT LA FENICE. Having just been there, this was so exciting. And the detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti, is different from my other fictional heroes, striking perhaps a clearer note. Sort of a plain guy. WelI, sort of. I have read the first four novels and, gratefully, there are many, many more.

Off the subject for a minute: when I bought the first book, I flipped through to find out something about the author. And there at the back was Donna Leon's picture. Okay, here's the weird thing: I saw this woman when I was in Venice. I stayed near Campo San Luca and saw this woman each morning and each afternoon. By day two of my trip, we nodded at each other. By day three, we smiled at each other. I didn't know of course who she was. She seemed very impressive, as though I should have known who she was. So strange.

So I have the next two Brunetti novels on my kitchen table, along with Daniel Silva's latest Gabriel Allon novel -- THE DEFECTOR. It is a betrayal of sorts I'm sure to have crushes on two guys; haven't had that luxury since I was a teenager. And of course, no films featuring Brunetti have been made (yet!) so I can once again cast whomever in the role. I think I must read the Allon book first before continuing with Guido's next adventure. Even if I have rubbed shoulders with the author.

Think what you will. This is a fine madness!

Just a Minute --

Last week, my daughter went to the emergency room because she was having breathing difficulties and had for years been told it was her high blood pressure. Tests and x-rays showed that she has a damaged Mitral Valve and requires surgery. In just a minute, her entire life changed. Without the ER visit she might never have known of this problem and died of heart failure. In just a minute, a rocky road appeared before her and she'll have to navigate carefully to make it across. In just a minute. When someone older than you tells you "it's all a blink," please believe it. When you're cursing a Monday and wishing for a speedy jump to Friday, please stop and remember that the Monday you want to erase is a one-of-a kind day, never to appear again. I know; you've heard this all before, I don't -- truly don't want to sound preachy. But this is what's on my mind today. (picture of Clea and her little girl)

My brother and sister-in-law are coming to Boston to visit next weekend. They came last August; went home; Evie went for a regular check-up, and in just a minute was fighting breast cancer for her future. My oldest son's best friend -- young, talented, special -- didn't feel quite right one evening. He laid down on his sofa to rest and never woke up. In just a minute there was a hole in the universe. There's a saying: "Man plans; God laughs." You have holidays mapped out; purchases; dreams. And suddenly, in just a minute, you have no job. Right. And then you reach my age -- please do -- and every minute is a lifetime. Not because it's interminable; because it isn't. There was always time it seemed. And then there wasn't. I remember a number of years ago hearing one of my favorite artists, Charles Aznovour, singing a song that brought me immediately to tears: "I didn't see the time go by." Wiped me out. This is the day. This is all of it. Rain, snow, hellish temperatures. This is the day. With loved ones, alone, happy, sad, whatever. This is the minute. If you want it to pass, don't fret. In just a minute. Use the time. Stay in the moment. Look up; your world is there. Whose voice do you need to hear? Call today.

Blessed be.

The First of Three Fables

This is peculiar: clearing out years of papers and scribbling, I found something I was challenged to write ages ago by my then husband. He dared me to write a fable. From the notations on the original, it had to be 1964-1966. A different life; a different me; a different writer. I'm going to put it here, and hope that a reader will tell me what this is about. And if I'd be wise to delete it! Here goes...

In a land of many shadows stood a town of many walls. The walls were built of violet colored stones and the foundations were of white marble. The roadways of the town were on top of the walls. The people lived in houses that stood between the walls, and one house did not face another. Doors and windows opened to the walls. The people strolled their roadways with pride. The high walls, the low walls of violet colored stones with white marble foundations crossed each other and crossed each other. The people were proud.

The wall of gray fieldstone was old. No one walked on that one except Ahni. Ahni was the little boy who everyone knew was mad because he spoke to the birds and said they spoke to him. Ahni would sit on the old gray wall and look out over the meadow of golden grass to the distant blue mountain. Beyond that mountain lay the distant places. Only Ahni looked out over the meadow. He was watching for the stranger who the birds said would come. Every day Ahni would watch. The people would look across the many walls and see him there and they would laugh, strolling the violet roadways with pride. Only Ahni looked out over the meadow of golden grass.

One day as the people strolled and Ahni watched, he saw a figure moving through the meadow. The stranger had come! Ahni called to the birds and they flew across the orange morning to greet the comer. Ahni recognized him, because it was himself-to-be who came. The stranger stood in the meadow and called to the old men. His voice reached them in tones of whispered words. The old men hurried along the old, gray wall to see the stranger in the field. They didn't see that it was Ahni-to-be. They only saw the stranger's walking stick with the white marble handle. They were filled with desire to posses one so lovely. Their old marred hands curved for such a handle on such a walking stick. The only marble in the town lay beneath the walls of violet stones. The old men ached for the marble; wept for the marble. But they didn't have the strength to tear down the walls.

Ahni was young and strong. He was mad because he spoke to the birds and said they spoke to him. So Ahni tore down the walls, stone by stone....stone by stone. This frightened the people and they hid in their houses. The old men wept and ached for the marble. The stranger waited in the meadow holding his walking stick with patient pride. Ahni tore down the walls. The old men beat at the marble and scraped at twigs. Each old, marred hand shaped a walking stick to match that of the stranger. When they finished their work, the stranger who was Ahni-to-be moved back through the field of golden grass, and the old men followed him. He led them up the distant blue mountain, and they climbed the blue beyond the mountain's height....

The people crept slowly from their houses. The doors of the houses now opened to a neighbor's house. The people walked among the violet stones which lay in great useless heaps upon the ground. The night was coming and the people were afraid. They piled stone upon stone, stone upon stone until new walls were built. Grotesque walls were built because there were no white marble foundations. Walls that could not be traveled upon. Stone upon stone...

The people did not see what Ahni saw: meadows of golden grass lay on all sides of the town, and blue mountains and distant places. The people built their grotesque walls of violet stones without white marble foundations and Ahni crossed the fields of golden grass. The old gray wall stood humbly in the shadows of the town of many walls. And Ahni-who-was sat and watched for the second coming.