We lost a giant last week. When Writer, Director Nora Efron went home, there was an instant vacuum created.  I cannot remember exactly when Nora came in to my life, and isn’t that the way it is with great friends? It feels like there was never a time when they weren’t there.   Of course (just like everyone else) I saw When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle You’ve got Mail but it was her writings that really resonated with me the most. Perhaps it was because I started this blog, or that I am starting to recognize the inevitable signs of aging… I can sense that in a few short years I will “feel bad about my neck” too, and as I search for the word or name of someone, or something once familiar, I worry that I too will “remember nothing” soon. When I picked up her books I felt like I was sitting down with the aunt that I wished I had and she was telling me that yes, shit is going to happen, but it’s also going to be fine and I am not alone.  She made me laugh, sometimes to myself, sometimes out loud on a bus, causing people to look at me, shift a bit or even change seats. Her honesty, her wit and humor took the edge off of whatever slightly depressing reality that faced her (and invariably you too).  I recall with great clarity the essay about hating her purse. She was writing my life. I can not tell you how many hours a year I spend changing purses from day to day in order match my daily wardrobe, I cannot the hours or dollars I’ve spent trying to find the “perfect” purse: the right size, with the right compartments, the perfect strap length and color. The perfect purse goes from day to evening, and is the perfect carry-on for travel. It’s a lot to ask but somehow I feel like it exists. In fact I feel like I will die trying to find it like it’s the holy grail of accessories. When Ephron wrote about her similar issue in an essay appropriately entitled “I Hate My Purse” we bonded. Reading her was like sitting with a good, wide girlfriend over coffee (or better yet a glass of wine) and kvetching.

 

For my best friend April’s birthday I got tickets to “Love, Loss, and What I Wore”. First let me say that this was a “make-up” birthday her actual day had been stressful and not at all what it should have been. So I bought these tickets thinking it would be a great girls night, make-up date. She loves fashion, and she was divorcing, it was perfect right? Now, April is always a hard sell, with her you never know, what you thought she might like could backfire and she will hate it. So I was on edge fearing failure…

Before the show we hit the ladies room, there was a queue out the door, when we looked over at the men’s room, it looked like a ghost town. As we made our into the theater we saw why, there were nothing but a sea of women and a few begrudging men who had been dragged their by their girlfriends or wives, (poor shlubs) The sight of all those women made me think that perhaps this was a bad idea (April and I are not Girl Power girls we are just sort of Amazon women women. I looked over at April and she was unreadable. When the cast took the stage I was nervous, but by the second monologue April was laughing and I knew we were good! We had the best time, afterwards she could hardly contain herself she was so happy, and I was so relieved. Nora Ephron had saved my life, my best friend’s make up birthday and gotten a whole theater of women to laugh at themselves, reflect on their lives and heal a little bit if only because they realized that they were not alone in all of those seemingly singular experiences.

 

After I finished I Feel Bad About My Neck I had a fantasy of meeting Nora Ephron and in an elevated version I would have dinner with her and we would become friends. I could call her and tell her that I just discovered the first sign that my neck was going south, the ring, my neck is like a tree you could read my age by it…

 

She would chuckle and say something witty like “I hope you can find a turtleneck bathing suit…”

 

But I guess that is not going to happen, she will have to from here, now, and forever more be a girlfriend to me in my mind. She left a great deal of herself to keep my company, guide me and make me long for more…

She will be missed but we are so much better fore her having been…

This explains ALOT!!! Her parents were on to something…