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River of Gold

I know some people don’t like rain, but after living 35 years in Los Angeles, every time it rains at our new home in Washington State I cannot stop smiling.

The energetic atmosphere, the wind, the moisture, and most of all the sky itself thrill and amaze me. Every moment presents a different quality of light on the water, every evening introduces new colors to my visual vocabulary.

The days are shorter here, which works just fine for me. It’s twilight by 4ish, and night by 4:30. Since I prefer to do most of my work in the earlier hours, that just means I get to get up earlier and knock off earlier, leaving long luxurious evenings in front of the fire.

Recently our daughters and their boyfriends visited. I had warned them that they would have to make the most of the daylight, so on the first morning, the surfer among them came bounding down the hall at 7 a.m. in his pj bottoms, arms in the air, calling excitedly, “We have to get everybody up. It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

It was funny, because it’s true. We repeated the line often during their visit and it became the vacation mantra, one or the other of us would attempt to rally the others to get going to lunch or a hike or a trip to the beach to gather oysters because…“It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

It wasn’t until after they left and Christmas flew by that I realized what an apt motto it was. I mean, it’s true in so many ways. The twinkling holiday lights will shine for few weeks only to be packed away, summer’s brilliance dims, youthful relationships that kindled warmth fall away as lives get complicated, and eventually we all wander into death’s shade.

It’s gonna’ be dark sooner or later. Well, soon enough. And while that can be sad, depressing even, it doesn’t have to be. It can actually be comforting in its offer of perspective. We know the sun will set, winter will come, we know intellectually that everything, even the planet, even the universe, will eventually come to an end. All the better to remind ourselves to run down hallways, along beaches, up hillsides, through meadows, shouting, “It’s gonna’ be dark soon!” to celebrate the light that we have now.

One of my dearest friends and mentors was a lifelong sufferer of Crone’s disease. I remember, back when he was in his forties, going for a test that would tell him if the disease had flared to an uncontrollable point, one that would mean his untimely demise. He had to wait 24 hours to get the results.

“You would think—hell, I thought,” he told me, “that would be one of the worst days of my life, that pressure, that unknowing.” He smiled and shook his head. “Turns out, it was one of the best because nothing, and I mean nothing, bothered me. Nothing was important. Someone cut me off in traffic? Not worth getting angry about. My soup was served cold? No big deal. My family is fighting? It pales in significance compared to the pronouncement of a death sentence.”

In short, he said, it was amazing. Everyone shone brighter, and he appreciated every small thing. After the news came that he would likely live a few more years, the elation faded, and things went back to being annoying and frustrating, but he could still laugh things off better than anyone else I’ve ever known. Once, when I was bitching about graffiti in my neighborhood, he asked, “Can’t you just see it as urban art?” I couldn’t, so I stressed and fumed ineffectually. But he could. Where I saw a problem, he chose to see beauty.

That was the amazing David Beaird. He was a man from whom I learned so much. One of the best writers I’ve ever met, though he wrote plays and movies instead of books like I do. My favorite of his movies, ‘Scorchers,’ opens with a very brave three-minute monologue given by one of the finest actors I know. The monologue talks about growing up and swimming in a river lit golden by sunlight, yet when he tried to tell grownups in a position of authority that he found this legendary place, they told him there is no such thing as golden river. He was crushed and hurt, but, he goes on to say, they could never make me believe it didn’t exist because, “I swum in it.”

It’s a glorious piece of writing, and one of my favorite acting performances. You should look it up.

This last year, my friend David passed away, the lifetime of pain and disease finally caught up in spite of his amazing spirit. His widow, who is a remarkable human in her own right, came up to visit me a few months afterward. She told me about the long wait in the hospital once he’d lost consciousness, and the vigil of family of friends. The best of those friends was the actor who performed that golden river monologue a thousand times on stage and once for the movie, Leland Crooke.

We talked about the fact that Leland had always been David’s muse as well as his best friend. Then she showed me something wonderful. While she and Leland had sat bedside, unsure if David was aware of anything around him, Leland began to speak those beautiful words in the golden river monologue to the man who wrote them, for only him. My friend very quietly recorded the moment.

The image is something I will not forget. Two men, lifelong friends, one on life support, the other sitting in a chair beside the bed, delivering a private performance. He recited from his heart those words about believing in things that you know to be true no matter what anyone in a position of ‘authority’ tells you. No one can deny the existence of that golden river because, once you’ve swum in it, it belongs to you. It is beautiful, it is magical, and it is real.

I have been honored to love so much, to live so fully, and to have experiences of my own like that golden river. Places and moments have happened for me that I alone remember, that only I know to be true.

So, I think, it’s important to see that night will inevitably fall, bringing an unknown eternity or the sweet relief of nothingness. Life is fleeting, slippery, and finite.

And if you remember that, then you will wonder at all the beauty around you. You can go and search for your golden river every day. Maybe for you it will be a silver mist that swirls around  in a forest, or a glint of rainbow prisms through a dew drop. Your moments may be huge, or they may flash past, but if you absorb them into your heart, they will live with you, and no one can ever take that away.

So today, I shall run in the rain, and splash in puddles, and slip into the forest to sit still and listen to the drip of moisture onto moss and leaf, the subtle, soft thump-thump of life.

And tomorrow I will get out bed and my spirit will shout to get up and play, because, “It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

Because of that perspective, the river will shine a more brilliant gold.

The birdsong will pierce my heart with beauty.

I will notice the magic everywhere.

Thank you, David.

I love you.

Shari, January 3rd, 2020

Acting & Experiences, creative inspiration, family, Life in General

Thirteen going on Thirty-eightish.

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Not me of course. This is a blog about one of the very special people I’ve met in my travels, and accidentally, through being an actress. I guess she started out a fan, I call her friend. It won’t be long now until I’m back in my favorite city, this time for five weeks. My daughter has gone to Florence, Italy for a study abroad quarter, and next week my husband and I will settle into a friend’s apartment in Venice a few hours north. We have several projects to work on while we are there. My youngest will come over with a friend during a school break, we’ll all visit, so everybody gets to eat great pasta and feast our eyes on art, dwell in living history, and wallow in the brilliant colors of Italy.

Okay so, can I tell you how great it is to have friends with an apartment in a 16th century Palazzo on the grand canal who are spending winter in Southern France and are like, ‘Take the apartment, we won’t be there!” Sweet. Cause there’s no way we could have afforded this trip right now on top of college and private school fees. My husband and I are excellent producers, so we know how to get the most from the smallest budget, (Can you say air-miles?) but this is special, because of the people who made it possible and how we met.

Back in the old days, when I was still on TV and my ex was on the number one rated show in Italy, (a soap opera, weird, I know)  I received a fan letter from a young lady who was 13. It wasn’t your typical letter. I could tell immediately that this was a very intelligent, aware person. The letter was smart, sensitive and engaging. So, instead of responding with the standard signed photo, I wrote back.

And we kept writing, this was pre-social media days. A few years later, when my ex was shooting Bold and Beautiful on location in the Lake district of Italy, both the young lady and her sister came to meet me. They were about 19 and twenty at the time. And they showed as much class as I had expected from them, which, let me tell you, is a relief when you’ve been dealing with tens of thousands of fans screaming, “But you must!!” about their every request for photos and autographs. (Really weird, and not fun at all, by the way.)

My friend and her sister are both lawyers now, the one who wrote me the letter at 13 is an international human rights attorney who is currently working in Brussels.  We’ve stayed in touch all these years. Then, when I was able to travel to Italy sanely with my husband Joseph, we met again, and again, and again. We stayed with them in Vincenza at their family farmhouse on one of those visits. My friends have grown into beautiful women who work tirelessly to help make the world a better place for everyone, not just clients who can afford it. 

I knew from that first letter that that young lady would amount to something, something special. And believe me, becoming a successful female lawyer in a country that is still very much a man’s club is extra exceptional. She once told me that when applying for a job, the first question from the Italian men was always, “What about if you want to have a baby? How are you going to work then?” That question would basically be illegal here. So I salute both sisters doubly for striving forward through it. (Not surprisingly, they’ve both stayed single.)

All over the world, countless people work hard for the good of us all. You may not see them, they may not have a reality show or a webpage, but they are out there, quietly and determinedly changing the world for the better. Fighting those stereotypes and antiquated doctrines. As an american woman, it’s good to be reminded that other women suffered and paved the way toward the relative ‘equality’ we have today. And every day I try to remember that the vast majority of humans really are good, even if they don’t get the same attention as the shitty ones.

So next time you talk to a teenager, really listen, maybe offer up a bit of information about the possibilities that lie ahead of them. If it’s a girl, and they say they want to be an astronaut, or a physicist, or president, applaud them. (Cheer for the boys too actually.) It’s important to realize that they can choose a tiny life where they learn no more than and never move forward from the life their parents knew, (which admittedly might be amazing) or they can do…

…well, anything.

Why are we going on this trip when funds are low? My cousin Laurence and his lover Michael had to make a decision. They were both HIV positive, but my cousin has beat it since the eighties, one of the few. So, when it came to choice between re-roofing the house or taking a trip to Paris, they decided to take a trip to Paris.

When they returned from that trip and it would rain, they would put out the pots to catch the dripping water, make some tea, get cozy, and look at their photo album of their French trip.

Two short years later, Michael passed away. Laurence sold the house and moved on with his life, but they will always have Paris. That is why we are going now, living our life, meeting up with lifelong friends and celebrating every day with our girls. When rain comes, we will have Venice.

Even as I wrote this blog, I was sent news that another lifelong friend of mine in Amsterdam just passed away in the arms of her son. Through my tears I tell you I will not wait for life to take me, I will go there.

Bouno viaggio, I’ll write you from the city where I can walk on water.

 

Shari, January 6th, 2016

Life in General

The Most Beautiful People.

 

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One of my friends with a kitten.

 

Yesterday I watched a short clip of Dustin Hoffman speaking at AFI about the making of Tootsie. He told the story of asking the movie studio to do makeup tests before they got into production, he said that if he couldn’t look acceptably like a woman, there was no point in making the movie. So they did, and he saw the result, and it was acceptable. Then he went back and said, “Okay, now make me a beautiful woman,” because he thought that was important. If he was going to be a woman, he needed to be physically attractive, right?  The answer was, “That’s as beautiful as you get.” 

And he began to cry, because, as he explained, he realized that he had discounted unattractive women for years, because of some social stereotype that being good-looking makes women valuable, and he knew that he had missed out on a huge portion of love, knowledge, and human connection. 

While this is a wonderful story—and yet another crystal clear example of how we should always put ourselves in another’s shoes before we judge them—it doesn’t just apply to women. 

It applies to anyone that you discount for physical, racial, or sociological reasons. They are not the ones who are lacking. 

Here’s something I learned long ago. Everyone knows something you don’t know. If you will only get past your pre-concieved idea of someone, you will find out that there is more to them than you expected. 

When I was a teenager, one of my best friends had a father who had gone down in a fighter plane in WW2, he was so badly burned that his comrades left him for dead and he laid there for 3 days before a rescue team got to him. The result was that when I knew him, many years later, he had no face. Or rather, his face was scar tissue, with slits for nostrils and the rutted, pore-less skin of a reptile. 

And he was one of the most wonderful people I ever met. Larry Clayton. He was gentle, smart, funny and entertaining. He had lived through so much, given his very identity to defend not only his country, but people who were suffering that he would never meet. He would do anything to help someone out. I’m glad and proud that I knew him and called him a friend. 

How could anyone judge him badly? Yet in our youth and beauty society, it was only his remarkable spirit that kept him from being shunned and ignored. Would you stop to have a conversation with someone who was initially hard to look at? Would you fear your own reaction? 

There are so many children I’ve met through the work with my charity, The Desi Geestman Foundation, who go through terrible physical trials, not the least of which is often the loss of their ‘cuteness’ or attractiveness. This is hardest on the teens, of course. I’ve met charming kids with bald heads riddled with tumors, three year olds whose faces are swollen and covered with fine black hair from the steroids, and quite a few who have lost limbs or even facial features. And I have seen the amazing beauty in them all and been blessed to know every one of them.

I talk a lot about perspective, because I think it colors and changes everything. My friend Paul, who I knew from age 9, when he was diagnosed with bone cancer and lost his left arm, until he died just after his 18th birthday, was the best hugger I ever knew. The last thing the charity did for Paul was to send him with some friends up to Big Bear, because he had never seen the snow, and we knew he didn’t have much longer on this earth. That was our final gift to him and his family. 

Paul had the voice of an angel and we were honored to have him sing at a few of our black tie fundraiser events. To see this cancer- plagued, bald 12 year old with one arm belting out “You are the wind beneath my wings” is a treasured memory that leaves me in tears even as I write this. I will never forget him, or the faces of his pallbearers, all of them were 18 or younger. I know that the lives of his friends who knew and loved Paul through it all are forever changed, they will never be young men and women who judge others by their physical appearance the way most teenagers would. 

That was Paul’s final gift to them. 

It’s a horrible way to learn a crucial lesson, and some small part of me believes that those kids came into our lives to show us what is important. That we don’t control everything, that life and death are neither to be feared. 

It’s those special and courageous people who inspired me to write “Invisible Ellen.” That’s why I think the story of a lost human, ignored and unobserved by society, is important. More than important. Their eviction from society is a loss of spirit and life, of talent and goodness, of potential for friendship, learning and connection that is wasted, not by those who are classified as “different’ or ‘unattractive’ but by those of us who limit our relationships to what is comfortable. We learn so little by embracing only what we know. 

I’ve had quite a few difficult life lessons, and I’m grateful for them all. Of course, I would much rather that Larry hadn’t been so horribly disfigured, or that Paul and the other children never had cancer, but they did, and they do, and I shall not judge the outward effects of their fates, I choose to see the spirit within. 

So, I know this isn’t the happiest blog, but I guess what I’m saying is this—the next time you see someone who is not a person you would go camping with, let’s say, challenge yourself to look them in the eye, to see the person beneath who is just surviving and living like the rest of us, and smile and say hello. Maybe ask how their day is going. And I promise you this. Soon, you will not have to challenge yourself anymore, you will realize that we are all different, we all have struggles, pain and faults, we all have so much to give, we just come in different forms. 

You might learn something you didn’t know, you might even let go of some irrational fear. Freedom is wonderful thing. 

You might even make a friend. 

With love and respect, 

Shari, July 10th, 2013