Dec 24, 2016
Hello again and welcome back to my holiday letter. It’s exactly a year later, to the hour I think. It’s been an interesting year for everyone, hasn’t it…and uncertainty abounds all over the world right now. How I wish this weren’t so.
No Santa Fe this year. I miss it more than ever. Sledding down La Marta Drive. Watching our 2 black doggies prance around in the snow off leash — (little Scruffy, and Trouble, our lovable Labrador). Making Scruff ride in the sled. Making the fire, then opening the chute when the house fills with smoke. Getting our tree on discount and decorating last minute. Farolitos, the Canyon Road walk — luminarias lighting the historic adobes. Riding up the quad or triple chair the day after Christmas with the kids and their friends – Emily, Sebastian — and flying down the mountain on our winter sports gear. Dinner with Mark, Dustin, Mary. Plaza Restaurant with Tone. The absolute stillness, quiet, and darkness except a celestial blanket covering us. Then, traveling to New York City for New Years. Celebrating Christmas again with our kids there… opening gifts with Carter, Ellis and Honor. And New Years Eve on the roof across from Prospect Park, where we can see the fireworks around the city. Oshogatsu (Japanese New Years traditions) with Jim, Jill and Miranda. Dinner with Chris, Liz, Alison, Mitch, Carrie, and our other friends. Shopping, skating, as much theatre as we can afford, and a daily dose or two or 3 of public transportation, or traveling on foot. I miss everyone already. Really.
2016 will be a UK Christmas and New Years. We have people to care for, and people we love there caring for others, or in need of comfort, that we want to see and be with. Three very unfortunate situations in total. My travel companions Dennis, Nell and Sam are game to go. American Express card cooperating for the time being.
For me personally, a very special woman in my life is at the end of hers. I found a bit of comfort in deciding to go to the UK to see her. Tho I haven’t begun to process this event. And it’s a shit storm I am walking into. I’m not sure how much I want to talk about this, or how appropriate it is. But this is where I am at. This is the main event this Christmas.
Bugger, let’s get to this.
In my senior year of high school, I went to New York City during Christmas week with my fellow drama students from University High. Chaperoned by the drama teacher Mr. Lomeli and his wife Lois, we flew red-eye on a chartered plane with other LAUSD drama kids to Newark, and then took a shuttle through the Holland Tunnel. Halfway through the tunnel someone shouted “We’re in New York” and everybody cheered. Seven Broadway shows (“the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Dancin’,” “Deathtrap,” “The Wiz,” “On the 20th Century,” “The Crucifer of Blood,” and one other I can’t remember!) and an older hotel, The Abbey Victoria, around the corner from Radio City. The drinking age was 18 and nobody carded. We were unleashed in Manhattan with our traveler’s checks, hats and scarves and with all our fellow cast members, scene partners, drama-fest mates in tow. We had to pair up for the hotel room. I wasn’t close to anyone however, though I had been hanging out in Lomeli’s classroom for over 2 years, so was dreading the roommate search thingy. But D asked me if I would be her roommate. And that was the start of our friendship. A few weeks before she had showed me a kindness…I had just gotten my hair cut short and was embarrassed about it, and she told me how great it looked and fussed over me like a true girlfriend.
D and I are both Libras, born 10 days apart; both from Los Angeles west-siders. Both demonstrated a social conscience in our youth and both had an artistic streak. Met in Lomeli’s class the year before. She used to do most of her scene work with Laura. The first thing I saw them do was the Maria/Anita duet from “West Side Story.” She had beautiful thick curly dark hair down to the small of her back, had a lovely soprano voice, and didn’t appear possessed with fear like I was. As we got to know each other better, I realized she was possibly the smartest, the most complicated person I’ve ever known. It was none of my business, but when we started planning our adult lives, I told her not to pursue theatre, but to go and change the world with her brain. (Something like that). I don’t doubt she would have succeeded in the arts. I majored in theatre, she in poly-sci. When we started looking at graduate schools, I looked at MFA theatre programs; she said she was looking at a one years MA in Women’s Studies…. in England. This was in 1985. Neither of us thought she’d be staying there for 30 years.
We would see each other on her visits home to her parents, and continued to intersect in political discussion, sometimes in heated debate, but always a shared interest in things people, the human condition, women’s lives, women’s bodies, the politics of … our complicated and changing places in this world– the social arguments ….in-vitro, abortion, and always whether the voices of those marginalized, including the voices of women, would and can be heard. I could barely follow a lot of arguments she was making sometimes. She pursued her work within academia, and became published several times, and an expert on the topics of reproductive technologies the study of genes — what in my lay person’s words I would call lesser considered perspectives on our rapidly changing world. But the friendship would always return to the basics…our old friends, our loves, or family, our health, our self image, and whether we were giving ourselves a creative diet. This was always a component. She remained a brilliant and prolific writer. Even now, there is book project, and she writes daily on her blog, “dark cloud,” about these final days. It’s hard to read, but it’s a distinct and familiar voice that I know well, and am still discovering what she is saying with her words and ideas.
D found a lump in 2007 and beat it with surgery and radiation. She got married, got a little Chihuahua, gave birth to 2 more books, and mentored many more graduate students at University of Warwick. But it came back. A tiny nodule in her thigh. She made a new plan, and it may have bought time I guess. But this plan meant not poisoning herself into an unrecognizable state, and not defining her life by the big C. Whether she managed that I am not sure, but she fought the good fight at remaining uncompromised in….well just about everything. And when she wanted to come home, she was too sick to manage it. So she will pass in her home in England. Anyway, that’s where I am headed tomorrow.
I would not be such a drama queen right now if I didn’t need all your strength and prayers for my very own. This will be the fifth time I have attended a dying person and the 3rd time I’ve had to do it over the holidays. Life is short and precious.
Today, Christmas eve, a lady in a crowded mall yelled at my daughter today, “your mom’s a stupid bitch.” (she wanted my parking spot). My set decorator sent me an email with a veiled threat on Thursday. Let it go. I also learned I got the rights to “Tongue of a Bird” and the theatre space to direct it this summer.
Something nice: my Executive Producer introduced me to one of our show’s writers as “Cyndy, she’s a playwright,” not “Cyndy our production accountant.” Definitely a first for me. My daughter catches light wherever she goes. Sam is a love bug. He embraced me as I was writing this letter. Five minutes later he did it again. A family with small children moved in across the street. They have the only flat yard on the block. Dennis and our closest neighbors, Bob and Charles bought a badminton court. Sam and Dennis just set it up in the yard so they will think Santa came. Nell fell asleep in her unicorn pajaminals watching “Elf.” Checking into my flight now.
And Donald Trump won’t last forever. Those of us that always do will pick up the pieces once again.
People do care. Some uncompromising people will give their whole being caring till their last breath.
Merry Christmas. Blessings to each of you.
Love,
Cyndy
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