Going on 9 weeks since the fire.
At that time, the question “What are you going to do? Are you going to stay? Do you have a place? What about your family? HOW are you okay”
THEN
Question: What are you going to do? Answer: I have no idea. I have my car, and that’s basically all I have in the material world. I will figure out the rest.
2. Question: Are you going to stay in LA? Answer: I’m not sure. Friends from all corners of the world have said ‘COME, I have a bed, a room, a place for you, you are welcome.” These heartfelt words were a life raft, and grounded me, but at that time I felt that staytng was what I was to do.
3. Question: Do you have a place? Answer: An unsolicited phone call from a soul sister friend, and YES. For a few weeks. A cabin to sequester in, calm down in, and grow an eagle perspective on ‘things’.
4. Question: What about your family? Answer: My daughtrers have their own lives, brim full of responsibilites and hooplah, and my instincts were to let them be.
5. Question: HOW are you okay? Answer: This is the most important question of all. My inner world. My inner world is in tact. It has been affected by this tumult, but has been actively consciouslly my best friend forever. My only REAL job now is to not be derailed from watering it, sitting with it, letting it guide me while the earthly chaos is front and center.
NOW
I came to LA on the heels of 9/11. Affer being on the NYC grief team and working with numerous women for a year…and being commanded by them to ‘GO to LA, write your stories for the big screen and touch others as you have touched us’, I heard this as a sign.
During my first week in the Santa Monica dog park with my golden angel, Oberon, I met an A-list screenwiter, who told me “Forget it. Spec scripts? Not a chance. You might as well turn around…and remember, it isn’t the ‘great’ scripts that make it, it’s the ones where the writer never gives up.”
I heard him, took no postion, and continued to listen to myself.
I do not pitch, or try to sell myself or my stories or my scripts or my documents…I manifest meetings and then sit and listen to see if there is a fit for collaboration/creativity/connection/FRIENDSHIP. I had an agent…and then he died. I met high and mightys in the business and grew relationships. Along the way, cheering squads have surrounded me. “I know you’re going to make it! Stay in there! I’m rooting for you!” My voiced answer has been ‘Thank you.” My silent answer is “I already AM making it…full on…my life could not be more fascinatingly alive and I LOVE it.”
As for my stories? A barnfull lined up and ready and more birthing every minute….will the ‘public’ know them? See them? Experience them in a way that I imagine? Who knows.
THE FIRE was another reminder of this. None of us know one thing about anything, really. Our job is to be the best that we can be in every moment, whatever that means individually…and find strength and beauty wherever we can. Perhaps in the company of a love, perhaps visiting sea lions, perhaps dancing in a sunset, perhaps sitting with an ice cream cone.
Yesterday out of the blue….my car died. Completely. Completely. Fema has not come through, and my dollars were all in my home. BUT/AND miracles happen everywhere if we allow them. Always.
Invite yours in and go find a meadow….or a beach…..or or or…..
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14Wendy Anderson, Nicoletta Agnelli and 12 others