Taxting Nostalgic

So I was texting my New York girls (Deezer, Roo, and Nuella–yes all nicknames I have given them over the 15+ years we’ve been tight).  I will be there in three weeks for my annual visit and we are getting pumped. Somewhere toward the top of our chain Deezer said, “I’m so depressed about Nora.”  We had been just been texting about bikini waxes so I assumed she changed the name of her First Lady to Nora. I also assumed that since it was making her “so depressed” she hadn’t tended to it since last summer. I insisted she take care of business before my arrival as we’d be spending two weeks at the beach.

Turns out the Nora she was referring to was Nora Ephron. The brilliant and hilarious screenwriter, author, director who passed away yesterday at age 71. I had no idea. They went off on me. “How could you not know this? If you still lived in NYC I would have known. Jeez Lisi, you have to get out of that bubble and move back to the real world.”

The truth is I’ve been working so hard on Phoenix Five I could have been by Nora’s bedside and I still wouldn’t have known. But they were right. Surf is up and the sun is out in Laguna. No one here is talking about Nora. Not that I’ve heard, anyway. So I’m going to.

Nora (I don’t think she’d want me calling her Mrs. Ephron. She didn’t seem the type) was THE woman I looked up to as a writer. Not because she was prolific, or because she was nominated for 3 Oscars, or because she wrote several blockbuster movies. Sure, her credentials were admirable but they didn’t inspire me. Nora inspired me because she was my kind of gal. If she were alive today and we were friends and she gave me her cell phone number and she had a few minutes of downtime she would have been taxting (texting about waxing) too.

I mean, look at what she said in a commencement speech.

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady,” Ephron told Wellesley’s Class of 1996. “I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.”

(I’m working on it Nora!)

Nora had all of the qualities I admire in a woman/writer/friend. She was serious about her work but not herself. She encouraged me to laugh at the absurdity of life, dating, and aging. She motivated me to look for the quirks in people instead of the flaws. And then to embrace the quirks instead of trying to erase them. To call it like I see it. To be honest. To have heart. Her work helped me define the kind of woman/writer/friend I wanted to become. I work on it every day. Some are better than others. Some really suck. But they all make me laugh. And that’s the point.

Thank you for everything Nora!

You are deeply missed.

TTYW

Lisi