When I was growing up, I didn’t have any famous female role models. Of course, I wanted to help people like my social worker mother, do everything perfectly like my Aunt Ona, and be on time and classy like my grandmother. As far as someone in the news, it just wasn’t happening.
Gloria Steinem spoke to my early feminist thoughts, but I didn’t have the disposition to be a revolutionary. Billie Jeanne kicked butt but I’m more “Glee” geek than sports jock. I was left with “Charlie’s Angels,” which gave me Kate Jackson, the intelligent beauty. But did I really want Charlie telling me what to do and who to shoot?
Then I saw the movie “Silkwood” written by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen. The movie had such an impact on me that I marched to the hairdresser and demanded a Meryl Streep shag that looked absolutely dreadful. After reading an article about Nora Ephron, I became obsessed, reading “Heartburn” in one sitting. After that, I read and watched everything that came out of her mind. “Harry Met Sally” became my go-to movie. Even “Mixed Nuts” and “Hanging Up” entertained me all the way to “Julie, Julia.”
When she passed away last month, I was so saddened. Her lists of what she will and won’t miss from her book, “I Remember Nothing”, circulated around the Internet, cheering me up every time they entered my mailbox.
They got me thinking about my own lists as I am trying to be present and in the moment this summer. So here goes, my own list of the miss not and misses:
Things I won’t miss
Laundry
Dirty dishes
Breast cancer
Cancer, everywhere
Bad pronoun usage
Rush Limbaugh
Commercials
Commercials in movie theaters
Processed rubbery chicken
Traffic in Los Angeles
Broken exhaust pipes
Facial hair
Jello
Liars
Conflict
Things I Will Miss
My family
Kissing my daughters’ cheeks
My friends
Latte at Zinc
Smell of fresh cut grass
Raw cookie dough
Laughing hard
Sasha the golden doodle
Boarding an airplane
A dark movie theater
George Clooney
Hot baths
Porcini risotto
A full moon
The sound of the ocean
Sunset at Main Beach
Love
I wish Nora had been here longer to write about what it is like to be sick and face your mortality. Her writing though kept us laughing at the living.
So, as we enjoy the last month of summer, what’s on your list?
Christine can be reached at [email protected]
