On February 18, I found myself at the bottom of the stairs.  My hands were tingling from breaking the fall.  My knee hurt and my left shoulder was killing me. Sleep. Self-loathing. Urgent care. PT. I am about to become a superhero.

Last week, we trekked out to Santa Fe, got caught in a storm, had a white Christmas, saw the luminarias and did Ten Thousand Waves under a full moon. Nell discovered snowboarding. I got a CMU School of Drama hoodie. Santa put a bottle of wine in my stocking. Sam got me 2 Woodstock vintage vinyl’s (I am listening right now).  And we got through Christmas quietly, with all its triggers. Sam & I even made it through the last 90 minutes of a 15-hour car ride (barely). I am truly blessed. I got a lot done this year. I traveled to Spain. I finished my documentary. I took it to festivals in San Antonio, Ft Lauderdale and Vail. I even got a little trophy. I worked on Barbie reshoots before the strike. Still, a pile of shit happened this year. We were not in a direct line of fire, but we felt the pangs, as well as our special powers.

My 2023 began with both Nell and Sam prepping me for an audition.  I haven’t done one in like a million years.  I was trying to learn the lines in the cafeteria at Mountain High, wet and freezing and stuck in Frankenstein monster ski boots.  I almost missed the audition slot, trying to jam in a ski trip the same day, predicting that it wouldn’t matter; I would not get cast. I might even be swallowed up through a crack in the living room floor on zoom. I was wrong on both counts. I was cast in something that I didn’t have to produce or direct or write myself.  The role was a cleaning lady named Cassandra that, like her mythological inspiration, predicts disaster at every turn, especial climate ones, but nobody listens to her warnings. In film production we assume impending doom every Thursday when paychecks are supposed to materialize.  I am chastised at work for running around saying “Nobody listens!” But they truly don’t. Nobody fxcking listens.  Still, it’s amazingly hard to just be yourself in a role, even when the role is fitting — cleaning up everyone’s shit and saying we’re all doomed. Ultimately, this play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (by Christopher Durang), worked out really well, took me on a 6-month creative journey, renewed me, and lead me to so many new friends. A family really.  Our little production later had a re-staging in a bigger space and two extensions.  I even got some nice reviews. At the end of the run, Nell came into our cast for seven shows, and we got to work together.   Nice big finish to that experience. And there was more drama to come.

I never thought much of my theatre experience at SF State.  I didn’t fit in, no feeling of community, never had a situation where anyone was dying to work with me.  But somehow, all these years later, that shifted. Inadvertently, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike brought me to the attention of two SFSU alums and an old castmate from Encore Theatre days who together produce a theatre festival in Frazier Park. I ended my summer with a second play (Midsummer Night’s Dream), opening another world of old faces (literally we’re all old now), writers, actors, musicians and comedians who all have San Francisco in common. I found camaraderie this year and am truly grateful for the friends who wrangle us and bring us together creatively and socially. (Paul Codiga!)

And wouldn’t that be just enough for a one pager? But strikes, Lahaina, algae blooms, wars and so many losses abounded.  Sea lions are being attacked by coyotes. Out my window here it’s greener than ever.  The rains came finally, but for all the wrong reasons. Does Cassandra have it right? During a performance of Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike all the toilets backed up between Act 1 and Act 2.  The next day the backstage toilet went too. It stays as such for 3 weeks.

I went to Oahu three times this year. Each trip I intended to stop and say hello or drop off a letter to my friend Kazuto (WW2 vet from the famed 100^th Battalion) who had been my pen pal since the 1990s. And though I was visiting my nephew Kraig just 2 blocks away, I didn’t stop. Later I read Kazuto passed away Aug. 30.  He was 99. Eight weeks ago, my friends lost their 24-yr old daughter in a car crash. Her father, Gabriel, was Dennis’ friend, who came to the hospital and spoke at his memorial.  He and his wife, Pilar, got a call from the coroner in the middle of the night.  They thought it was a prank.  I don’t know how anyone survives such a thing. I lost another friend, my co-worker of 14 years. I said to his widow let me know if there was anything I could do.  Two weeks later she asked me to fold his clothes into boxes. Such an intimate task, but an honor too. My new best friend is a 4-year-old boy named Julian who lost his mom.  Sam, Nell and I took him on vacation with us to Catalina. He’s a bright bulb who has seen some stuff you can’t unsee. And we adore him.

We found ourselves in the middle of several situations like this, called upon to say or do the right thing. It held a mirror before us. I observed our progress in the faces of others.  It’s there. I wouldn’t have gotten through this year if it wasn’t. So, we got to pay it back a bit this year, all the love that came my way a few years ago. The community of people that step forward, that fortify and strengthen you, when you have made an investment in those people.  Those communities.

Pilar said to me “we didn’t know (what this felt like).”  “Nobody knows what to say to us” and “things just keep moving.” I wanted to hug her. I know exactly what she’s feeling. How I wanted to stop the world turning. I want to tell her and Gabriel, and Julian and his dad, all of them, that they don’t know what they are doing yet. They won’t for a long time.  It’s like this process.  You can’t rush it.  There’s no magic bullet.  Yeah, everyone keeps moving. That the world keeps turning is the thing that eventually gets you through it.  Babies get born. New people come into your life.  Old friends you haven’t talked to in ages come to call.  Your children graduate. You and your stepchildren and grandkids become closer.

Saturday, Feb 18, 8:47 am.  Text from Kraig on Oahu: “Please call me ASAP.  Please” That was the last call I wanted to make. I was sure it was about his mom, my cousin Leslie, like a sister to me, and like a guardian angel to everyone she loves. But Kraig’s call was about his older brother: my nephew Keith. A car crash. Keith was 29.  That evening I had too much to drink, and my hands stung at the base of the staircase.

Keith and I had been close.  Dennis and I held his little hands getting in the water in Hanauma Bay.  He took care of our kids in summer. We rode in a helicopter over a volcano. I had spoken to the Dean of New Mexico State University on his behalf. He trusted me. He loved Dennis. He saw us accidentally kill our hamster and laughed at us when Dennis tried to give it CPR.  We loved Keith.  He also didn’t listen. Like at all. We grew apart.  I offered tough love.  I continued to worry. I remember helping him with left turns. I told his mother he should move out.  He didn’t trust me after that.

Nell came to Oahu for spring break.  She was the first boots on the ground.  Then I showed up with my bad arm.  In April Sam met me there, and brought his guitar, and we sang a duet, Blackbird, at the service. We watched a line of boys in their 20s say goodbye to their brother, their childhood friend, beautiful Kaneohe Bay behind us all, Leslie wailing throughout.  In July we three came again, with our friend Oshy. We had all forged relationships with Leslie and Eddie –once separated, then back together, then divorced, back together, now grieving hard. With their granddaughter, Kora, we dug a hole at the beach and played chase in the yard. 

We can be superheroes, just showing up and being in a room. The kids think I try to say too much at times like these. Always trying to find the right words.  Nothing even needs to be said. Be in attendance. We can stumble through Christmas, us 3, and we can muddle through some difficult shit with others.  It’s highly imperfect, of course.  But I am putting it on my new resume under Special Skills: Bereavement Superhero 2023.

I met a playwright-actor fellow at the theatre festival in Frasier Park where he was passing out scripts, living in his van, and making a play for me. Later the van showed up in LA.  I let Van Man in, as I can see he is suffering from a loss too. He mentioned he has some Special Skills like plumbing, which I filed away for the end of the world.  Just a few days ago, we are all settled down to a nice glass of winter’s eve when Nell says she heard something gurgling while she was in the shower.  It seemed to be coming from the toilet.  And hour later I heard it too. And then it happened. 2023 literally ended in a shit show. I kid you not. Did you know that a playwright-plumber is also a superhero?  Art, a plunger, and patience with ourselves will get us through, Cassandra. A crash pad at the bottom of the stairs for those dark February nights.

Love you all.  Please take care in 2024.  Be safe.  Fix your rain gutters because the floods are coming.  Make your art.  Write. Travel.  And cherish each and every day.    

2023 Awards: Best Documentary Ninety Minutes Later //Best Instagram Videos Sam Fujikawa//Best Last Minute Replacement in a Play (twice!) Nell Murphy // Best Line from a Performance “Beware of Hootie Pie” (Cassandra)//Animal Totem Award Hootie Owls of Mt Washington -they are singing right now// Best Friend and Newcomer Julian Anderson (Talent Night at Catalina Camp mascot; Midsummer Nights Dream (fairy) // Best Film of the Year Dashcam video by Peter Jacobs of our road trip to Vancouver.  (I busted a gut. Thanks old friend.) Best New Work in Development: Kazuto Story–Letters from an Unlikely Friendship

We didn’t invite five other family members to hold our hands.  We didn’t run to my cousins in Hawaii. We walked nearly alone this Christmas. Me and my adult son and soon to be 18-year-old daughter, and enjoyed being with just each other.  It was simple and good, with just 2 dinner guests (Susan, a career public health nurse—not to mention the mom of our beloved friend, Oshy — and Susan’s hubby Rick). Activities included many movies, a lot of green chile, sledding, skiing, one fight, and many songs around my parents’ old upright.   But now, a week later, bags are packed, fireplace is swept, leftover posole in the Ziplock bag, and the dog and cat are about to get stuffed into the carriers. The tree, still green, looks lovely with no ornaments.  A few snow flurries whisked by a little while ago, but nothing sticking.  The flight to LA is in 4 hours. I have the usual Dec 28 writer’s block.  All of the 300+ cards are waiting for this letter and it’s not going to write itself. 

While I promise this will not be the usual 2 pages of doom, I’ll just get this out of the way: the hardest, perhaps most shocking news of this year is that my daughter in law, Dr. Marie Packer, had a stroke in April, which lead to a massive brain bleed, conjuring up some pretty dark memories for our family.  Marie is just 42, she and my stepson, Ryan, are practically still newlyweds.  But with undiagnosed hypertension, Marie has been on the front lines in a Chicago hospital for over a year during the worst moments of this pandemic.  Being a doctor again may be off the table for some time.  Being on the front lines is not likely either.

When Marie and Ryan were dating, they were on a flight from LA to Chicago when flight attendants inquired if a doctor was on board. Marie was on it, attending to the distressed passenger, and ordering the crew to land the plane, which they did in Kansas City shortly thereafter.  As if Ryan hadn’t already thought she was the perfect woman.

In the words of my own doctor, “what a waste.” The better news is that she has working her tail off in physical, cognitive and speech therapy, and both she and Ryan have embraced the radical changes.  He is an exceptional partner, and they are both amazing people who have born more than enough. I know you will keep them in your thoughts as they traverse a new kind of life together.

One of my junior high besties had lost her father over Thanksgiving (not to Covid19).  He had lived a full and happy life and was beloved by his clan. I paid a visit to her and her mom, just before my trip, to say the right thing. When I arrived at the westside house, it was a bit like walking back in time.  The welcoming house I had spent so much time in as a teenager was flush with Christmas decorations and family members, including two innocent little boys in pj’s.  One of them immediately came to me with a big hug, and I wanted to scoop him up. I was also the elephant in the room, wearing my KN95, giving my muffled words of condolence to her mom. Wondering how I got here in a house full of people visiting from Arizona.

El Torito was the only place that didn’t require my friend to show proof of vaccination. The happy hour drinks were weak, so I ordered a shot, but the waiter brought two.  I had just rattled off a list of the 18 BA and BFA programs my daughter is reaching for.  “Do you think she’ll be able to make a living?” I explained the importance of an artistic education, about wanting to give Nell the room to discover herself.  I continued my earnest babble. “You didn’t answer my question:  do you think she will be able to make a living as an actress?”  I have ignored this kind of goading from her countless times, as it has always been clear: she is in charge of the friendship.  I am supposed to know my place. “Will she be able to support herself?”  I did not answer the question.  I know the answer she wanted.

I’ll spare you details of the rest, as there was no winning the eventual turn in the conversation.  In my extra tequila shot, I hear her say, “Cyndy, it’s not a real vaccine.”  There was no way out except to say what I thought, which was that not saying anything was unacceptable to me, especially if I really cared about her and her mom, the reassuringly unchanged house, the beautiful little boy with the hug.  What she said, what I said, it hurt us both very much. The evening ended with me saying that I should not have come at all, and I would not see her again until she gets vaccinated.  She said, “then we’ll never see each other again.”  This was also unacceptable. I replied that eventually things will get better. And they will, but let’s face it, there will be casualties like this one. And like Marie.

But what upset me most, what has stayed with me these 2 weeks is the gun at my head — will my children survive as artists?  I tried to explain that it’s not about that.  That it’s not about the result, but the journey.  When you get the calling, that’s it.  “A leap….of faith.” (J. Larson)

Six weeks ago, Lin Manuel Miranda’s film Tick, Tick…Boom! opened.  I watched it with trepidation, worried it would be conjuring up the very dark chapter for me of the first person I knew to die young.  I have spent the past few weeks processing it, not so much as a piece of filmmaking (I have some pretty strong opinions you don’t want to hear), but processing the creative journey of my friend Jonathan Larson, who I did not know since junior high.  But with who I intersected with in the final 6 months of his life, before this death at the age of 36. 

I didn’t need to know Jonathan more than a few minutes to know we were the best of friends.  We met during the final months he was composing Rent, a musical set during a pandemic, and discussed writing, artistic survival, crafting a story, and collaborating with others.  We happened upon this by discovering our mutual love of Sondheim, and became inseparable for one week, spending any time off from writing and rehearsing in each other’s company, asking ourselves the same question about making a living, negotiating the grants, the diners, collaborators, the workshops, the crafting, the love of the work, comparing notes. All the while partying. However flawed the cinematic retelling of Tick, Tick…Boom!, I was elated to see a major motion picture about the artist’s journey and sacrifice.  Tick, Tick…Boom! didn’t go far enough.  Jonathan in my view made the ultimate sacrifice, perhaps as some insane cousin to Marie (a scientist with a passion to help people, dealing with a pandemic) who indeed eeked out a seminal work of our time, transforming the art form forever, before his illness was detected.  I have dreamed of Jon, sometimes with a crown of disease.  I searched for this in the film, and did not find it, nor my friend (until the end with the reels of Jon himself).  I got through watching this film by singing at the top of my lungs through it all.  Celebrating the writing.  Celebrating the songs.  Reliving it and thinking, “what a waste.”

With only a few lines to go before my 2 pages are up, may I now pivot to a celebration of Jon’s mentor and mine, Mr. Sondheim, who left us in 2021; I was not sad, but frozen on the subject, and only just now contemplative.  I am grateful to have performed in 4 of the shows.  I will raise my voice in the living room again (perhaps one day on a stage) when I can get through it. (I could barely get through the covid birthday bash for “Steve,” as Jonathan would call him.  Sang and cried throughout.)

But last night, our last night in Santa Fe, we celebrated Sondheim and a few others. 

I convinced Sam to go to the film, despite the Ansel Elgort scandal. And I was instructed by both my kids there would be no singing in a public movie theatre under any circumstances. But even the mask did not muffle the sobs during West Side Story (2021 version; aka Rita Moreno’s revenge).  Despite the controversies, you had me at Cool.  Even Bernardo’s bad Puerto Rican accent couldn’t disrupt the journey I was on.  I leaned in, as the stakes got higher and higher.  I prayed the story would end differently this time.  I celebrated this early work of my creative hero, Mr. Sondheim.  Trifecta:  Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins.  The original stage musical Westside Story is a masterful work.  Spielberg is no slouch either.  Or Kushner.  Or Shakespeare.  You may be surprised to know that I was bolled over by the remake.  Not perfect, but neither was the original film.  And now we have two of them to enjoy.  And even though it was brought to you by a whole lotta white men, the women’s performances won the day here.   They were spectacular.  I celebrated the brain trust of all of these artists, discussed the choices that were made in a world still beset with racism with the kids, debated the choices that Maria made with Sam, forced both kids to watch YouTube videos of Moreno’s sensational dancing in the 1961 film, and went to sleep with musicals running through my heart and brain.  It drowned out El Torito and the 4 subsequent text messages from friends who contracted covid over the holidays.   

With so little to be sure of

if there’s anything at all

I’m sure of here and now, and us together.

Anyone Can Whistle, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

No day but today

Rent, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson

Much love and tidings,

Cyndy Fujikawa

By the time you read this, 2020, full of tragedy and lessons, will be over.  What next?

I have written this letter for nearly 20 years now. Each time, I look forward to gathering my thoughts and sharing them.  I consider who might read it. Looking back, a pattern emerges…some bummer thing happened and I get back to something useful by the end.  Perhaps a message of hope?  I have to say it’s not only difficult to get to that this time, it’s harder than usual to even start thinking like that.  So I begin with hand addressing them and now there are over 300 cards to mail and a letter to begin and the clock is ticking and Jan 1 looms. I begin this one by looking up and seeing what’s in front, not behind me.

The Santa Fe Report.

December 28, 2020.  I am in in Santa Fe, facing the fire. Don’t judge, please. I know you all know what looking at the 4 walls for months is like.  And my family is so fortunate to have another set to go to, if only we can get there.  Where it’s is peaceful and full of stars, and has fewer humans about than my LA neighborhood. Besides, me and the kids eventually had to stare down the ghost of Christmas past in Santa Fe (we dodged it by going to Hawaii last Christmas). After much debate we sprinted here in the car, stopping only for gasoline and three pee breaks, shielded in KN95s, gloves and wipes.  The La Marta house was welcoming and cozy (code for charming but neglected).  Dennis is sorely missed. His presence is strong in this house. His boots are still in the closet, his ski jacket with tags hangs there too. He had left neck warmers and gloves in a ziplock back, lovingly labeled with his distinct writing. And his art, especially his Hopi collection, is on every wall.  One of my arguments for coming was that this place holds us, focuses us on each other, which it did. We hunkered down, me and the kids, 2 dogs and our “covid” kitten, Bumi, and 2 guests from our LA bubble, and began some of our rituals. My batch of posole this year was vegetarian (another broken rule).  The tamales from Las Posas were still amazing, but the assembly line of cooks were replaced by workers with buckets.  The annual Canyon Road walk “Farolitos” was not a walk, but a drive thru.  There were a lot of cars, including patrol cars, and not many farolitos (paper bag lanterns), and even fewer luminarias (camp fires – I only saw one in fact).  And there were no people.  This is a good thing. Normally wall-to-wall pedestrians, observing the charming adobes adorned with lights and fires, Farolitos 2020 would be a super spreader.

Adam Schiff is not really my boyfriend:

A year ago there was a little thing going on called impeachment, and I mentioned in my 2019 Christmas note that Adam Schiff was my new boyfriend.  I got a lot of congratulatory texts after that.  While I am heartened that some of you thought I was progressing in my bereavement, and in a relationship with the esteemed congressman– the warrior who lead the impeachment of Donald J Trump — I was in fact not in a relationship with Schiff.  I was simply admiring him for trying very hard to help save our democracy.

BF Schiff did not prevail, but we made some headway in November.  Looks like it’s on us after all, to save democracy.  Or what I will call the idea that is democracy, since we have yet to realize it.   But Schiff – who is not actually my type — is still a patriot and a hero in my eyes (even though he supported the fallen LA County DA Jackie Lacey.  Nobody’s perfect).

You know who’s my next bf? Someone from the United States Postal Service.  Those guys kicked ass this year. 

Why Family Matters/Sucks

I don’t see my brothers hardly at all.  This is not accidental, and it has snuck up on me how normal it has become for entire holidays to pass with little or no contact.  It makes me very sad, but when I act on the sadness I remember the why of why things are the way they are.  And you don’t need the details.  If you don’t already know mine, you probably have your own.  But I did reach out to both of my brothers, who I love, on Christmas night. One never called back.  One did. 

Me: “Merry Christmas”

Him: “Oh, I thought Fauci had ‘cancelled’ Christmas”

And off we were.     Later, I mentioned that one of our childhood friends had recently contracted Covid19 and was very sick, but was pulling through. 

Him: “How can we tell the difference between the ordinary flu and the coronavirus? Especially when we consider the hype? …the rate of recovery is far greater than we’re lead to believe.

                Even if he has it, he’ll have build up antibodies….”

Me: “Whoops, I’ve got those damn cookies in the oven. Gotta go.”

That being said, please consider my brother has a form of schizophrenia.  He runs a little paranoid, as did my mom.  That’s his excuse.  What is everyone else’s excuse? Seriously.  WTF?

New Mexico Spirits and This Year’s Totem…

2018 was a bobcat staring me down just weeks before the worst day of my life.  2019 was a bighorn sheep overlooking us on the river where we scattered Dennis’ ashes. I understand there was a buck in my front yard the other day, but it didn’t come by for me. No, my 2020 totem was Christina Maria.   

If Christ was a brown skinned homeless woman with a beard, living in a car in hoarding conditions, with a bike strapped to the hood, then I met Christ on Christmas day at Fort Marcy Ball Park in Santa Fe. And she had a message.

Santa had brought Nell a pair of roller skates.  My house is surrounded by dirt and gravel, so we broke the rules so she could try them out. Our bubble drove the pod car to the nearby, nearly empty Fort Marcy park in search of an empty stretch of cement. There was one car in the parking lot which of course we avoided. When Sam got out of the passenger seat, I heard someone ask him for something.   A first aid kit.  I figured she needed a bandaid and was thinking whether I had one in my purse. I couldn’t quite see her.  She was in the driver’s seat with the door open. I was busy clocking the situation and for covid safety.  This car, perhaps this parking space, was her home.  The little car was packed top to bottom cardboard and plastic bags. There was barely a place to fit.  I asked her what she needed and she asked for some help with a burn.  She said she lives “alone” and she was trying to make something to protect herself with, which she thought was pepper spray, but it got all over her.  She by this point had swung her legs out of the car and on her right calf, from knee to ankle was one continuous burn that had consumed the whole lower leg.  All of the flesh looked like pizza.  She wanted to know if I had something she could put on it.  Perhaps aloe vera. Now I know we all encounter people multiple times a day who are on the streets, and it is a dilemma.  And every time I feel completely useless that I can’t really do anything that would make a difference.  And it’s Christmas day, and every production of a Christmas Carol is flooding back to me and it’s all on me what to do.  Sam checked his iPhone and told me the DeVargas CVS was open, so I told her I’d be right back and I sprinted there.  On my way I googled chemical burns and then spent $130 on stuff that was completely pointless, including 2 jugs of water, and bags of ice, full well knowing that what she really needed was a hospital.  And then also thinking that if I succeeded in transporting her to one, I would expose my family on the way there, there would likely be no bed for her anyway, and that her “home” would likely be gone when she was discharged. Her life would be worse. I brought her the bag of burn remedies and bandages, and she said she couldn’t reach it, could I bring it closer.  And I moved it closer to her, but I held my 6 feet distance, and accidentally dropped one of the water bottles, which sprung a leak.  I told her to pour the water on her wound. She was very grateful, and thanked me. I told her she needed a hospital and offered to call someone…she said she didn’t like hospitals and that she wasn’t in pain. She said it was worse 2 days ago. Still, I ran home and got her a baggie of ibuprofen and 2 tamales in case she was taking more than 2, it wouldn’t be on an empty stomach.  When I got back she asked my name, and I said Cyndy, and she said hers was Christ(ina)-Maria.  She said god bless you (me).  She looked at the park from the car and said she grew up here. She had her mask pulled down and I could see her beard.  And then me and the kids drove away in our rented SUV.  I was pretty sure she would get an infection that might take her out and there was nothing to be done.  I worried about her the past 2 days.  Today, I checked.  The car is gone.

And that, Charlie Brown, is what it is all about, I think.  It’s a dilemma.  There’s not a lot we can do for each other right now, but we can’t turn our heads.  We have to look at the burns.  They are there and they’re killing us if we don’t.

OK here’s the hope.  Moving less is good.  When you do, the animals return, especially the birds.  Everything is better when we slow down and focus on each other. So be it.

Be safe.  So grateful for my dear friends and family.

Love and grace,    Cyndy Fujikawa

Christmas eve, into Christmas morning, 2019

The kids and I decided to break from tradition this Christmas. Still a little apprehensive to be on our own, we went to Hawaii instead of our wintery haven in Santa Fe. We had been to Santa Fe and Taos in July, but I’ll tell you about that later. So instead of luminarias, farolitos, and our snug home where we put the dog on the sled down the unplowed road, tonight we are listening to the water, and the wind, and the flapping of palm leaves. There is a terrific storm, but no snow. It’s all warm water. Still, it’s late at night on Christmas eve. I should be asleep. Another tradition to wrap, reflect and write. Some other traditions are intact. I made the stuffing tonight. I’m jet lagged, so I almost didn’t, but realized that another break from tradition just didn’t feel right. Prior to that I brined the turkey and made some awesome Christmas cookies. I think we’re on track here, though I overheard Nell saying earlier it doesn’t feel like Christmas, but honestly, I think that was part of our plan. We are safe in Hawaii from the ghost of Christmas past, who would break my heart, frankly.

There are so many things to tell and really it would bore us both. The list includes my job jobs (I had 3) my performances (I had 2 singing, plus 1 film), my writing (I did some), my directing (documentary in the works), my remodel (including dream bathroom downstairs – please come over and take a bath), some small victories (leaving a job I hated), some utter failures (bad judgment about taking that job in the first place), my current job (a B/W film adaptation of the Scottish play), my totally perfect children (only a couple of minor defects: the quantity of screen time and making their mom feel inadequate here and there). See, I think I covered it all in about one sentence. You may not even need to flip the page this year.

I have a bunch of new friends: Vicki, Terence, Gaby, Arye, Delia, Ryan and the Law Clinic at UC Irvine (google Vanessa Marquez Cyndy Fujikawa). Delia is not speaking to me at the moment. Long story (google Vanessa Marquez Cyndy Fujikawa). I guess I could stop beating around the bush and really get to it. Tell you what’s really going on right now.

I have a new boyfriend. He’s not the most handsome guy but I think he is pretty damn special. His name is Adam Schiff. Recently he has had to endure a lot. He is very good at his job, but gets bullied at work – like on a daily basis —

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-adam-schiff-deranged-human-being-maniac-nato-summit-1475436

but he has hung in there and stayed strong for me, and for all of us. Even for some people who don’t even appreciate it. He brought me one of the best Christmas presents this year. (Begins with an “I”). My man.

I am trying to think about what really happened this year to me. So much, and yet time stands still. I dreamed recently that I was trying to marry Dennis again (which happened at his bedside at the hospital, incidentally). I was in the past in my dream. I can’t remember the details but he was very alive. And when I woke up, I came upstairs, and saw the new blue couch and the giant new windows and the canyon gleaming at me, which really seemed like the real dream. And then I remembered that I spent the life insurance money on a remodel and that the march of time and my progress was staring at me in the face. That my life ahead is upstairs where the light and the spectacular view comes in. But down in the bedroom where the clothes still hang and his vintage wingtip shoes still adorn in the closet, that is my guilty pleasure. Two steps forward, one step back, as they say.

People ask me how I am doing. “How are you?” It is code for have you recovered? And I say “I’m ok” which is code for it continues. There is no quick fix. There is no full recovery. I have to move ahead and I choose to stay stuck both. I’m living my life. Making mistakes. Continuing to do as much as I can, and perhaps too much. And I make time for, or rather make no apologies for, my sadness.

As for the kids, I think they are pretty happy right now. Except when they aren’t. Their lives are also very full, but it rears its head (notice I didn’t say ugly) without warning. But I believe they move through it with the resilience of youth. You can ask them yourself.

In July, we did the last of our symbolic rituals: the scattering of Dennis’ ashes. The chosen spot was the Rio Grande up in Taos, New Mexico.

In the late 1980-early 1990s Dennis did a lot of river rafting. When Dennis and I got together in 1998 he took me on my first whitewater rafting there in Taos (the Taos Box to be precise.) The Box comes with several sets of Class IV rapids. Our day on the river was a day to remember. On that trip, in the middle of the biggest rapid on the Taos Box, and after explicit instructions from the guide not to fall out of the boat, three people including the guide flew out of the boat. The girl in front of me went right out and was bobbing around in the whitewash and rocks. I clung on for dear life, but Dennis reached across me, and, without holding onto anything or anyone, he grabbed her life vest, and yanked her back into our raft. And that was it for me. I had found the man who would be my partner in life and the father of my kids.

On July 4, 2019, we gave Dennis to the river. We were in 2 rafts. On this adventure was Dennis’ oldest son, Chance and his wife Emma, our grandchildren Carter, Ellis and little Honor; Dennis’ second born, Ryan, and his wife Marie. And us: me, Sam and Nell. With the river guides, we filled two rafts. I had brought along yellow roses (Dennis brought me yellow roses on our first date) and a palm sized sack of ashes for each of us. We hiked down the gorge with mules carrying our rafts, and entered the river at a remote spot. We were on the river for the entire day, including a stop for lunch. Perhaps 4 hours elapsed while we enjoyed the spectacular scenery, the water, and the wildlife, including an otter splashing around.

Our guides tethered the boats together when the time came. I handed out the little pouches and flowers. Although Nell was in the other boat, she was next to me on the flotilla. Sam was in my boat on my right. Nell put her father’s ashes in the water. I turned to my right and Sam was staring at his pouch. Everything became quiet while we sprinkled Dennis’ cremains in the Rio Grande, along with flower petals and our tears. I started to put mine in and dropped the sack. The ashes got all over the boat, and some onto Nell. The sack sank. This was not how I wanted this to go. But anyway, the ritual continued. I turned back to Sam and he was now not only staring at the sack, but also at the rose, which he held in his other hand. I said to him “It’s ok. I saved some ashes.” Nothing. He was not ready. Finally I said “you don’t have to.” And he put his sack and the flower away.

It was perfect. It was imperfect. I remember moments later I was rowing. We rowed in sync with each other. We were crying, breathing, and paddling, our bodies engaged, the 10 of us. We rounded a bend and this bighorn sheep was staring at us from a high angle on the side of the gorge. His eyes followed us as we floated away. If Dennis had a totem, this year, that was it. He stared and we stared back. We were confined at the bottom of a canyon with water and wind and our feelings, and our bodies. We were together. We were alone. That night there were many tears. It was disharmonious. The day had been perfect and very imperfect. Life, and death, are messy.

And we continue.

gorge

Best wishes for 2020 for love, harmony, forgiveness, acceptance.

Cyndy Fujikawa

CF Christmas letter, December 2017:  “I saw an owl on my L.A. street recently.  Then I also saw a bobcat in my driveway in Santa Fe 2 days ago.  Both times, we stared at each other for a long moment before they flew/ran away into the twilight.  My two animal guides for 2018? (Text your thoughts to 323-533-3246).”

Anyone figure it out?  I assume one or both, probably the owl totem, signify impending death.  At least in some Native American cultures they do.  And of course Dennis had traveled the red road in his 50s.  He could not pass a stray feather without meditating on it for a few moments, and then rescuing it. I still find feathers tucked in the pages of a book, or in his wallet.  An eagle feather has hung over the entrance to our house for 18 years.

The owl on San Rafael Ave (on our hill) stared a hole through me until I got out of my car to try to photograph her.  I didn’t know what it was at first.  But it was unmistakable as it flew away, the huge wingspan a dramatic exit.

As you know, three weeks after marking the new year, Dennis was called away.  In March we celebrated his earthly life, and many people were lined up on the stage of the DGA theater (the big one) to tell us about how he affected theirs.  An unexpected outcome was a running theme in all of the stories.  And the many letters, cards, emails and other tributes were notably similar.  Dennis sold them an idea — to believe in their own possibilities.  If I had a nickel for every person who told me Dennis gave them their first job, or convinced them to take a crazy leap of faith.  He was an agent for positive change and self-action.  He lived by that example.  People came to me with not only stories, but with props… trophies of their achievements that they felt Dennis was owed some credit for.

Several friends told me at the memorial, after listening to the stories, it made them want to be a better person.  Or made them think about what they could do now, today.

I am incredibly sad at the loss of Dennis.  My heart breaks every day.  But I am the luckiest, most privileged person to be charged with interpreting his short time here, and to be the recipient of gratitude from so many.  Dennis always said he really wanted to make the difference.  In a person, helping the first time director make the days, preserving the Hopi language with a radio station, or even talking to a swing voter in Ohio or Virginia.  No question he made that difference.  He liked to talk to people and he could be persuasive.  Perhaps that’s why he was the real master of the art of the deal.  He loved to talk to people.

And obviously, he gave me the greatest gift of all… our incredible kids, Nell and Sam, who have demonstrated grace and strength on their journey, and compassion for me on mine.

My “new normal” in the new year of 2018 became crying whenever it struck me and having literally no filter.  People just got used to it.  In July, I finally got away from L.A. for a stretch of time. The first week was spent at a rustic cabin at Waimea Canyon on Kauai, with my kids, their cousin Matt, and Susan and Leslie – my old San Francisco roommates from 1980-82 — under the same roof once again.

The first night I was there I had a vivid dream of a living, spunky, impish, naked Dennis.  I embraced him, and told him that I had had a terrible nightmare that he had died. He said, almost being silly, that it was true. I asked him if he would come back, please.  But he said no (not so silly now).  The world is too troubled a place right now – not a good time.  I asked if I could come to where he was.  If it could be done without harming our kids.  And then I woke up.  I cried the whole week in the cabin after that dream.

And indeed the world is so troubled.  I know everyone is freaked out about what’s going to happen.  I guess as I see it, when the world inches forward with some progress, there is such a violent backlash from people who are so attached to their comfort zone – their hatred.  It’s discouraging.  What can a person do?  How do we carry on?  Why even celebrate Christmas when we can’t keep it in our hearts for more than a day?

And I guess what you can do is look for the small things (going all Forest Gump here).  I am still flabbergasted by the number of friends that came to help us.  That still come to help, even as I write this.  When the news got out about what was happening, within hours, people were on planes, by our sides, by Dennis’ bedside, sleeping on the floor of our house.  An invasion of people began that lasted weeks and months. How is it possible that there is so much love and kindness and goodness in the friends, neighbors, and communities we found ourselves in?  It’s extraordinary and it helped.  Every freakin’ ride for my daughter, every lasagna, every text… you know who you are.  There were literally hundreds of you.  And there were thousands of gestures that I will never be able to repay.  But silly, the greatest gift perhaps is finding out how loved we are, and that despite all of the shit in the world today, people really are wired to be good.  If I am wrong, then at least I know that Dennis, Sam, Nell and I have chosen the best people to be among us.

Now, the Bobcat.

The bobcat animal totem is also about creation, and developing our abilities into a higher level of value. Additionally, the bobcat is also about the unseen and silent aspects of our inner selves.  The bobcat encourages us to delve deep into our hearts and minds and shed light on our potential.  To leap out of hiding and show our power to the world. (This is a mash up of what I learned by googling.)  The bobcat stared me down on around Dec 28… which is one year ago today.

Dennis was not perfect by any stretch, but if anyone lived the significance of a bobcat totem, it was him.  And so I think this is how I will go forward, and will be my message for 2019.  Delve into your hearts and minds my friends.  Realize your potential.  Dennis would want you to.  He wants all of you to know that you can do it.  Don’t hesitate.  Begin.

 

Lastly, the best Christmas gift you can get…

Our family got very close this past year.  Every cousin, niece, and nephew.  But especially with Dennis’ adult children, Chance and Ryan, and their families. Because of everything, we have seen quite a bit of them all year.  This Christmas we got a very special gift from Dennis’ three grandchildren: we got to do Christmas for the first time, and we converged in Santa Fe. And yes we had a white Christmas.

We taught the kids to ski (they all did great).  Honor and I rode the chair lift while it snowed, and I watched Dennis’ 7-year old granddaughter catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Grandson Ellis turned 10 yesterday, so we took him to Cowgirl Café (our Santa Fe tradition) where everyone did charades, then returned home for a board game.  Both of my kids have taken ownership of their roles and aunt and uncle to Carter, Ellis and Honor.  And in turn they are very much looking after us too.  After the kids went to bed, 18 year-old Sam, who lost his father 11 months ago, said to me, smiling: “You know, Mom, the best Christmas gift you can get is an experience…”  Indeed.

Till next year.

PS. Past letters will be posted at https://peanutgallery.blog/

PPS. Memorial videos can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/manage/folders/289679

 

“The chain of events, the links in our lives – what leads us where we’re going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we don’t see coming – and what we do, all this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obvious.” 

Avenue of Mysteries, by John Irving

A year ago, I began this blog.  Eight months ago, though,  my life took a left turn and I took a break from writing it or anything really.  Today is my birthday and the break is over.  But more importantly, today is the 20^th anniversary of my first date with Dennis Murphy and I need to tell you about what happened on that night.

On October 17, 1998 I was turning 37.  I had rented a cottage in Mount Washington, a neighborhood north of downtown LA that I had always loved.  The bungalow, as it was known, was a big rectangular room, nearly 40 feet wide, with a wall of windows overlooking a stand of over a dozen redwood trees.  There was a fireplace, a makeshift kitchen, and a bath room in the back.  It was crude, but rustic and charming. I had with me my very special cat – Kitty — who you either loved or hated (I loved).

She played rough. She was very friendly but sometimes she could make you bleed with her friendliness.  She had saved me and she was my baby. I had just returned from a location in Park City, Utah, and without rent to pay, I managed to save up $12,000 that summer.   I had boxes and a few things here and there in the new place.  Mary Jane’s sister loaned me a wooden table and 2 chair.   I was sleeping on a foam pad on the floor the first few nights.  The previous night, Mary Jane and Kelley, who had also returned from Park City, had helped me set up an antique bed frame that I had bought from the production.  It looked great. On my birthday, I had bought myself a mattress for it. It was blue.  Kelley said I couldn’t have my date  — ten years in the making — with the bungalow looking like a moving van.

   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

A decade before the bungalow, before Mount Washington, before Kitty, I was prepping for a feature at stages in West LA. I was still very new to the movie accounting business.   My friend and then boss, Ray, and I had just returned from a remote location in Nevada (near to where they now hold Burning Man).  It had been a long and dusty summer there with bad diner food, 7 or 8 slot machines, an evil producer, crazy locals, living in trailers, and no AC in the old school that serves as an office.   By contrast, in LA we were setting up in our very civilized studio office — on a Saturday.  It already makes no sense and feels dream-like to be coming in on a Saturday.  I think Ray wanted to make a good impression on his new UPM. Ray’s desk faced the door and mine the wall, so when the UPM stopped in on his Saturday as well, Ray saw him first, and then I turned.  Dennis wore a Hawaiian shirt with red Annie Hall glasses.  He was a little slumped in posture.  He had a kind, relaxed looking face and exuded warmth.  He just stood there and took us both in for a second.  I don’t know anything else at this moment, but I remember it like today.  I felt his goodness.  I loved him at first sight.

Dennis was engaged to someone named Lisa.  He referred to her a lot.  There was a big picture of her on his desk.  He also drove a Maserati and we had to send his checks to a manager.  He was always nice and respectful and treated me like a real professional, even though I felt pretty deer-in-the-headlights.  He dressed like a fun person…vintage shirts and jackets, but also sometimes very elegant silk shirts.  He had a lot of nice shirts.  I never flirted with him. Once he told me once that his ex-wife was named Cyndy.  Beyond that, nothing happened that would suggest he had noticed me.

   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

But now, Oct 17, 1998, I was standing in the bungalow, putting on a Leo Kotke cd.  Then I was messing around with which song was the right one.   I had changed the music twice already, trying to figure out what I wanted playing when he walked up the driveway, through the redwoods and up to my door.  He had canceled the date once already.  Prior to that we had just hung out once or twice before the summer as friends.  We had met at the beach for brunch.  And we had gone to the Mint to see Harry Dean Stanton.  He had been a perfect gentleman.  (Dennis, not Harry Dean).

Prior to that I had remained in touch using work as the excuse, or occasionally hitting him up for a donation to my theatre company (yes, he sent a check once or twice).

Prior to that I was moving to New York and he called to give me the name of a friend, an ex named Monica, and suggested I look her up for career advice.

Prior to that I had been in a play at East West Players in Silver Lake and he came to see the show on my 32^nd birthday.  Prior to that Lisa had told me that he was going to ask me on a date so I invited her to bring him to my show, and my subsequent birthday party.  Prior to that, well, Ray and I had gone to Sushi Nozawa, and he had told me he was at last going to get me and Dennis on a date.  (I was 31).  Prior to that, he had been engaged to Lisa for the third time and she took a picture of us at Ray’s wedding in Santa Barbara.

And prior to that was a show we did in 1989 called Tales From the Crypt and she was bitching and moaning in my office about him during the death rattle of their relationship.  One day she looked at me and said, “he should be with someone like you.” I turned away.  Or bright red.  I just remember that I thought she read my mind.

Prior to that we are back in West LA on a film called UPWORLD, and I am setting up my office on a Saturday and the UPM stops in and says hello.

“Hello.  I’m Dennis.”

I knew he was someone important in my life, but I didn’t know why yet.

And I know why now of course, but I don’t entirely understand the why of anything.

Dennis walked up the driveway to the bungalow through the trees in his nice green jacket.  He had his long hair in a pony tail and he held a bouquet of yellow roses in his hand.  From then on he would always bring me yellow roses.

Kitty jumped onto his lap and started kneading him and purring like crazy.

The short version is that he moved into the bungalow 6 weeks later.  And on my 38^th birthday we got engaged.  Chances are you probably know the rest of the short version. But I’m not good at short.

After the cat crawled into his lap and staked her claim, after I had put the yellow roses in the vase, he presented me with a birthday gift….a lovely Hopi bracelet.  We left for the restaurant then, and though my choice of Leo Kotke was pretty original (at least I thought), the cd in his producer SUV was Native American flute music.  But seeing as how I had bought us show tickets for a Sondheim revue, I don’t think either one of us had passed for “edgy” (though we headed off for sushi at some very hip, back alley downtown restaurant — his choice).  While dining, he leaned in for a kiss and said “happy birthday!”  I was not used to being treated like a queen, let alone on the first date. During PUTTING IT TOGETHER at the Taper, he gently asked me if it would be okay if he held my hand, and I said yes. He also dozed off during the musical, but since it was a revue, I forgave him and chalked it up to there being no plot. After the show, he drove a little too fast for comfort through the parking lot of the Music Center in his silver Ford Explorer as I held on for dear life.

If you are looking for the exit now, go. I think you get the point.  All I needed to know about my life with Dennis Murphy, I knew on the first date, which was ten years in the making.   Go ahead and miss the best part.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our second date was 2 weeks later: Halloween.  And Dennis would never pass up the opportunity to do something with a theme.

We met at the Psychic Eye bookstore in Sherman Oaks.  On this day, he wore a flannel shirt and had his hair loose.  He looked a little wired, but in a fun kind of excited way.  He was knee deep in books about raising the dead when I got there.   Our plan was to hike in and around Topanga Canyon, watch the sunset, have dinner, and then go back to the bungalow for a séance.  He had brought Little Joe with him, his Border Collie mutt.  Dennis had so much gear with him for our little urban wilderness journey, I thought his backpack was going to explode.  By sunset, we were ensconced on a Mexican blanket, with Little Joe, and we snuggled as the sun dipped below the ocean beyond Malibu.  At the bungalow we made a makeshift Ouija board out of butcher paper and pushed a shot glass around it. I am actually a bit of a cynic when it comes to psychic stuff.  I am not sure we summoned any spirits, but we had a memorable first Halloween together, and a successful second date.

Somewhere between our 2^nd and 3^rd date we had a very long phone call about the fact that I was pregnant.  It was actually a series of phone calls.  The earlier ones did not go so good.  He was upset.  I was less upset, but got more upset that he was upset. Then I was very upset. He was bordering on angry.  He had two adult sons; the younger had just finished college, and both were in debt and frustrated with him.  Dennis had just gotten booked on a movie after a 2-year period of unemployment and a bankruptcy.  He was also on a foam mattress on the floor, at Levie’s place in Van Nuys, and his house in Arizona was for under water and for sale.   He was just now putting his life back in order.   Had I turned our perfect first two dates into a personal catastrophe for Dennis?

I asked him to keep an open mind while I sorted out what I wanted to do.  At 37, with no relationship – for many years now – nobody but the universe was talking.  Amidst the panic, I was trying to listen to what she was saying.  She was wearing a giant clock while she spoke.

Though I didn’t know Levie yet, Dennis told me that it was this dear friend who helped him wrap his head around it.  (I think that was what we now call the man up speech).  I remember I was on the bed in the bungalow, talking on the landline, and we were backing up a step and discussing the possibility of being in a relationship.  Dennis had just experienced a short-lived, disastrous marriage a year before that had wreaked havoc on every aspect of his life, and a rocky engagement with someone else a year before that, and another one prior to her.  “I ruin everything” he warned me.  “I will try and control you.”  I just listened. Hard to picture.  I have never had the honor of having a man try to control me.  If anything, I had been suffering from a lack of interest from anyone I had gotten involved with.

When I went to Dr. Dwight for the first time, this exuberant young OB-GYN downtown, he bowled me over with friendliness. Yes I was pregnant.  Approximately 6-7 weeks.  I was about to see the spec of life on the screen next. When we got to the ultrasound, he said, “Okay”….and there was a pause and a change of tone.  “ I’m not seeing a heartbeat here.” I didn’t know what he meant at first.  Then he told me what to expect from my body in the coming days.

I would know Dr. Dwight for many years going forward. Twenty so far, but this was the first time we met.

I was listening.

For our third date, I came to visit Dennis at work.

He was shooting in Long Beach on the Queen Mary.  He had in fact crossed the Atlantic on her in his youth.  He gave me a tour of the bowels of the ship, and we went looking for ghosts in the darkest caverns.  There was a piano in the bar area, and I played and sang a song for no one but Dennis.

Back in our stateroom, we lay on the bed and I cried my eyes out.  He held me tight and said “I got you Cyndy.  I got you.”  He said he felt a little like Obi Wan when he senses that that planet exploded.  A voice in the universe that had suddenly been silenced.  (Or awakened.)

This loss set our relationship on a course that was very focused and very much about being together and starting our family. We got right to the business of our lives as if there was no time to waste. (there wasn’t, as it turns out).  It was not only fun, but was a healing experience for us both.  Dennis had many regrets just then.  He had kind of made a mess of things personally and financially, in an effort to try and fix people who he cared about.  I have a similar tendency.  There were a lot of great things happening for me professionally and creatively, but, outside of the fierce cat who bit hard and loved hard, I didn’t have a personal life. We didn’t need each other, but recognized we could move our lives ahead together and not interfere with things we each wanted to do.  I don’t know if we ever put it quite in those words, but I know that we agreed if we had dated in 1988, it would never have amounted to anything.

One year later, on my birthday, in 1999, we saw Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica.  Afterwards, we rode the ferris wheel at the pier, and he snapped this picture of me.

Then he drove me to Little Tokyo and, in front of the Go For Broke Monument, he knelt down and asked me to marry him.  He had saved the money for the ring.  We would try and get pregnant in the new year.

So we worked hard and played hard.  We made money.  Saved money.  Spent money.  Went into debt and then prospered again and went into debt again.  We traveled. We saw elephants and leopards and temples .  We made a beautiful home in Mount Washington.  We got drunk and filled our bellies.  We sobered, nursed our young and cleaned their bottoms.  We cared for our mothers and cleaned theirs too.  We said good bye to them and to Kitty and Little Joe.  We buried three sisters:  Teri, Susan and Judy. We fought, disagreed, but always shared the same values.  He dreamed, I was pragmatic, but we both took risks. Both of us, we gave it our all.   I like to remember that we didn’t waste time, which is so precious.  We did nothing perfectly but we never gave up.

Dennis always said that I changed his life.  It’s actually true. But I can say the same.  The beautiful gifts he gave me are everywhere I turn. I’m so blessed I can’t stand it. The journey to have our children, and to raise them, is the most important, the most meaningful thing I’ve ever known.  Through the worst moments of our turbulent marriage, it is what always brought us back to center.  “I have the tiger by the tail” he wrote in his journal.  We both alternated sabotaging everything we worked for at times, but we both know we were crazy to pack so much into a short span of time.  I could never have done what we did without Dennis.  He could never have done it without me.  We knew that.  It always brought us back from the brink of self destruction.

In one week from today, the baby we conceived after our engagement– our son Sam — will turn 18 years old.  When our daughter reaches this milestone, Dennis will have been gone for four years.  It boggles my mind, but it makes we all the more grateful for the life he gave us.

Today is the twenty year anniversary of the start of our journey. I see him walking up the oval driveway with the yellow roses, loose, in his left hand.  But now his long brown and auburn hair is loose and wavy.  He is excited about walking through the door to me and the life we are about to make.  He is open. We don’t’ know what’s about to happen, but it has been worth the wait and the scars.

 

My friend Deborah had left instructions for her memorial service, including a list of people to thank at the end. Her little niece struggled to pronounce all the names, including my own, of people she’d never heard of. There was a whole clump of us “drama” friends to thank, as most had written emails or even made videos for Deborah, reminding her that, although she was far away, she was not without friends wishing her well.

Sometimes what you need at any given moment can come from unlikely people.

 

This post is dedicated to my fellow classmates from University High School with who I shared many interesting and now treasured times with in Mario Lomeli’s drama classes, rehearsals, festivals and stage productions in the late 1970s. In particular, I would like to send a special shout out to John Putch, probably the guy I knew the least in my class.

John makes movies. He has made movies since before I first met him in 10th grade. He is still making movies. He writes, directs, and produces. Back in the day he used to act in them as well. He was really, really funny by the way.

His early movies were Super 8mm, and they featured most everyone in our drama class. Most. Not me, fyi. I was either invisible, or just not in his league.  Tho I was definitely a fan.

John, the grown-up filmmaker, recently presented his latest film called “The Father and the Bear,” at an LA film festival, where it received an award. I got to see it on the big screen. I was one of the last of our classmates to see the film I guess, because I didn’t know anyone there except John and our mutual friend Dendrie Taylor, who had a featured role.

The film was a testament to what John does consistently, and consistently well, which is be himself. A great lesson. It’s a sweet movie about a beloved aging summer stock actor who has dementia, and is losing his reason to be. He is brought back for one last encore performance in a fundraiser for the theatre, and everyone is bracing for his failure, but hoping for his success. He sells out the house, adding mounting pressure. I won’t ruin it….it’s worth the watch and it is for sale. But I’ll say this much: there is a community of love which helps our hero ultimately. And seeing her dad get all this help, helps his daughter (played by Dendrie) in her transition, accepting the changes in him and as her role as caregiver.

The star of the film was the theatre itself, Totem Pole Playhouse, which was John’s second home growing up summers in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania. The theatre is still in operation, and Johns dad, Bill Putch, ran the theatre for over 30 years, even rebuilding it after a devastating fire.

John’s mom Jean was a household name in a groundbreaking television show in the mid 1970s, so the rest of their seasons were spent in an entirely different existence: Hollywood. Hence, our meeting in West LA’s University High (aka Uni…); once a vibrant public school which served Westside LA communities such as Brentwood, Westwood and Bel Air.

John kept the worlds pretty separate. We never got a glimpse of life at Totem Pole Playhouse until he created a documentary about his father, and then more recently in these independent movies he makes, all shot in PA. And now more than ever, it’s clear who John really is. He’s John from PA and John from Uni. Or maybe it’s the other way. But there are two halves to John.

Just like there are two John’s now….there’s John the silliest filmmaker I have never known, who’s early films still making me pee my pants, and those films which John makes now which can be very sentimental.

And I’m not even going to get into the John who directs television shows for a living . From the way he tells it, it’s a means to an end anyway. His heart is clearly in a holistic process which is his own.

About 2 years ago I had this good and bad experience when I tried a mini-comeback in theatre.  Years before, I had written a play about my mother and her vaudeville family.  And with the help of two collaborators, we launched a workshop of this hidden gem which had been stuck in a drawer for, oh over a decade. It was a less than satisfying experience.   In fact, it felt like playing with theatre was playing with fire, and I came crawling back to my job in film production, which now seemed to be the easiest job in the world. See, I found myself in a very painful situation when the knives came out. I realized how alone I was as a writer, and how everyone will kill you: actors, director, producer, if you give them the opportunity.

But for a second, I would like to point back to this band of friends from high school.   I have to say that even though I really struggled to fit in at times, they really surprised me in the end. Until perhaps the last semester of high school, I felt I did not rate.  It was not easy being from one drama department in middle school (let’s just say south of Pico Blvd.), and then showing up to another one in high school (north of Santa Monica Blvd.) where most had matriculated from their Jr high in Westwood. This may have all been in my head, except, well it wasn’t.   But they all came out to see my tragi-comedy vaudeville extravaganza in 2015, for better or worse. That surprised me to no end. Seriously, you can really tell who gives a shit when they drive all the way to Venice to see your work onstage after 37 years in a tiny theatre that seats 34.

John was among the friends who came to see my epic vaudeville play. He introduced himself in the ticket line, shook my hand, and said “I’m John Putch.”  And I said “OMG John of course I know who you are!” He mention he was very pumped to see the show,  but then I remembered his movies always had vaudeville characters in them. As I said, my play was fraught with creative conflict — between me + the actor playing me, the actor playing my mother with dementia (who could not remember her lines, yes, Life<>Art), and let’s not forget the director who was channeling my actual mother (that’s not a compliment, by the way). By the end I was practically banned from rehearsals, and there was certainly no face-to-face communication. Only painful emails. At one point, I got a nasty one about where I had sat during the show that night. (“So disrespectful and thoughtless”, according to one producer/actor). I was sitting in the 3rd row. Whatever.

A couple weeks later John and I met for lunch. I had NEVER socialized with John in high school except in a group setting. It was our first one-on-one.

What do you think he said to me? It’s easy, c’mon.

“Why didn’t you direct it yourself?”

I don’t direct.

“Why not?”

I’ve never directed.

“But you know what you want, don’t you?”

Yes, of course

“Well go get what you want.”

I took that home with me to think about.

 

One of the first people in that group of higher drama mortals was Deborah.

I have much more to say about her and her amazing heart, but this will come in other chapters here. Suffice it to say that when that girl had your back, she had it.  And ironically she was the first person to collaborate with me in Lomeli’s class: she directed and I did everything she told me to do. Well in case you haven’t put it together, Deborah left us recently.  Coming up on a year actually.

OK, I’m back. I went away for a sec.

Deborah was a very, very VERY complicated person, and consequently  very Very VERY sensitive.  She lived in Birmingham.  Not the one in Alabama….the one in the UK.  Many of the tribe had not seen her in decades.  However, she and I had remained close since high school and college, and I was one of only a handful who had visited her in her adopted country.  Even before her 2007 cancer returned, when I would see her from time to time, she appeared to need constant reassuring, as if she’d been alone in a desert.  Although England’s hardly a desert, she did seem  marooned there, and worse, in a large industrial city which was not a destination for any of us traveling to the UK.  And now, in light of her diagnosis, I asked what Deborah wanted or needed and she said she needed to hear from people.  And she didn’t mean just once.

So after the vaudeville debacle, but before Deborah’s demise, I went to the UK to see her.  I had been working on a project in Prague, and had promised to come to England on the way home.  She had had it in mind that she would in fact come home, perhaps one way.  She’d mentioned trying to fly home in the spring, but now it was April already.  I really wanted her to just jump on a plane and go for it, but lots of things were making that look like a bad idea.  Now her pain level had gotten “intolerable” (though she would tolerate much greater levels in the months ahead).  Friends she thought she would see once more, she would not in fact ever see again.  That was a difficult thing to come to terms with.  One dear friend from our 70s drama days, Larry, organized a little video shoot in front of our old school. Others who could not make it sent me their on-camera messages to deliver.

On my way home from CZ, I walked into the house in Birmingham with as many visual material I could assemble to fill the empty space. And before dinner, Deborah was laughing, wiping away tears, and asking to play the videos again.  Her partner, Gershon, thought I had brought some strong medicine.  The only problem was that we ran out of it pretty quickly.

“Do you remember,” Deborah says, “the movie with John Putch and Mike Pizzuto when the car slips on a banana peel and crashes???”

And now back to John Putch, the filmmaker. So John and his Uni high sidekick, Mike Pizzuto, used to make these very, very silly movies. They were the clowns. They were the vaudevillians. They even play vaudeville characters in some of their films (and super-heros and others). Look how silly…

I emailed John that night.  When I checked my email in the morning, he had sent the vimeo link to the archive of funny movies, circa 1978-79. Deborah and I were splitting our sides all day and evening. Her husband came to check on us, as laughter had so not been a part of the heavy atmosphere in the old Birmingham house. In fact, he remarked the other day to me about the extraordinary transformation that day.  No one knows but me that it was those old movies uplifted our friend.  The faces of old friends, now young again. A talented bunch of hams I adore.

 

 

Send in the clowns.

Two years later I directed my first play. It was fun, rewarding, and yeah, hard.  There were one or two assholes (ok there was one) but you know I managed.

When John came to see the play I directed, he said “did you get what you want?”

Yes

“Told ya.”

Today I call myself director/writer/producer. Fuck that. Director/Writer/Producer.

When Deborah passed away her body was repatriated to Los Angeles, and we held a memorial. Several folks from Lomeli’s drama class came together and mourned the loss of our friend, and one of the first among us to be taken before her time.  But we were well represented. I was a pall bearer.  Three of us from Uni were in fact. Holding the handle, feeling the weight (or lack thereof),  and seeing my friends holding the other handles was nothing less than profound.

At the end of the services, Deborah’s little niece, Caitlin, came up and read a list of all the folks that her aunt Deborah had wanted to thank….friends, students, colleagues, nurses, doctors.  I get that.  And then the other list, many of who were sitting there in rows 2 and 3.  But for what?  I believe it was for making her laugh.  Getting her through.

 

“Thank you, Beuuu, Diana Tash, Mike Koshi—meetzu,” Heaven help… “Amy, Gary Grossman,” they got easier…” Jamie, Amy, Helen(e) (close enough),  Karen Nyberg, Mickchel Horvat, Larry, Gregg Oohsstrin, Mike Pizzuttu,….” Make way for the clowns…

“And John Pooch.”

(laughter, rows 2 and 3).

Thank you John Pooch.  For not missing a beat.  And for the good advice.

Thank you Deborah for the extraordinary friendship.

Thank you dear friends, as we hold each other up in good times and all other times.