I just spoke to my most lovely and dear friend Kate in L.A. and I am always amazed at what a gift of a friend she is. I have never left a conversation with her where I did not feel better about myself and life in general. In this case I laughed so loud I thought I might wake up Nahanni. This morning Nahanni was repeating over and over something that took me a while to tune into: "Auntie Chloe. Auntie Chloe" was the refrain. Chloe is Kate's daughter and when I became pregnant she exclaimed "Can I be Auntie Chloe!?" (she is an only child) to which I of course, agreed - and meant it. Nahanni has only met her once, when I was flown to LA to test for 'Virtuality' [bastards!] and it was so strange for her to be talking about that out of the blue. Although it wasn't really; not strange or out of the blue. I had been thinking of Kate a lot recently, thinking of the day I had met her.
I had made a call to my agent in LA to let them know that I was looking for a place for pilot season and he called back 5 minutes later having then received a call from Kate to say she'd be renting her daughter's (Chloe's) room while she was away at college. Within minutes we were in talks about me coming. She spoke of a sunny garden, of the loving animals in the home, of getting her Master's from Yale and being on Broadway and it seemed like a great place. I pictured her as I listened to her laughing voice, articulate tone - tall, New York sophisticate, a charcoal cashmere wrap tossed loosely over her shoulder, hair shorn close, pencil skirt, a delicate gauloise dangling from her fingertips. "Trying to quit!" she would whisper, somehow making a vile habit seem beguiling.
I arrived in LA early evening, after driving nearly straight from Vancouver, through snow and sleet, through the barrage of people that is California. Through gray concrete Sacramento and beautiful golden hills under vast blue skies, and then through the hell that is the 5/405/101 highway to hell that leads me white-knuckled into 12 solid lanes of traffic. My first hours in LA almost inevitably give me a heart attack - it's like being thrown onto a NASCAR track. I took the wrong off-ramp and ended up crawling down Olympic Blvd for over an hour and a half. I was beat, emotionally drained, worn through. Nothing was as I expected it to be. I dragged myself up the driveway, dirty and tired. Before I could ring the bell this is what I saw:
The green screen door swung open with a bang and a large, fabulously rubenesque woman in her 50's(?) was flying at me with arms flung open wide. Her crimson lips were framing a dazzling big smile and her red fingernails whistled in the evening sun. Her hair was madly, wildly red and curly and she was wearing retro cat-glasses with a leopard print motif. She says my name (I think) and pulls me into a hug like an old friend. The house smelled warm and a beautiful chicken dinner that she had cooked for my arrival sat waiting for me on the table. Even though my very first visit to LA had ended with me holding an Emmy in the parking lot of my new managers while looking straight up at the Hollywood sign - I can still say that, is a real welcome to LA.
It's funny whenever I think about that it makes me smile. It is funny too in the way that I think about my experience in LA. I often lament that I failed; failed myself, failed my shot, failed my career - but Kate is the once who reminds me, both in presence and in word, that victories are not always as we envisioned them. The gifts are always there, it just depends on how you are willing to see them. She graciously points out all the ways in which I was very successful there. I also think to myself that a lasting and dear friendship is a great success and I think there was a divine intervention that brought me to her. She has taught me a tremendous amount and I truly consider her my 'spiritual mother' and so it is true that Chloe is indeed 'Auntie Chloe' and she is 'Nanny Kate'.
She said such a wise thing to me today about Nahanni. I was describing what a singular joy it is to raise her and she said "Yes, and it is a lifetime gift - it is really the gift that keeps on giving!" and I could not agree more. Sagacious as always, she points out that while we would have had 'another soul' had I done things differently with respect to LA, we would not have had Nahanni and she is, undoubtedly, 'the perfect soul'.
I couldn't agree more.
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