Another year older...and so grateful

A few years ago I thought that I had gone through some tough times and that life would spare me at least for awhile.  But now I know there is no sparing -- there are, in the course of every year, beautiful, joyous times AND really bad, difficult times.

This year was no exception.

The beautiful joyous times were simple days of spending time with my daughter, Zoe, with friends, traveling around the country and a trip to Dublin, all for work.  Riding my bike along the Hudson in the summer and taking long walks in Central Park in every season. 

There was a visit to Emily's house in the country -- bittersweet because of her absence, but still pleasurable.

My play performed at the Beckett Theater this year, with friends from all areas of my life, old friends, new friends, everyone showing up to see it and lend support.  And a cast and crew of the most wonderful people and the challenges that go along with every creative project.

There was the grief of losing my best friend, Lucy, my beloved beagle, who was with me for 13 years and who died at 17 years of age.  I miss her daily and am deeply grateful for having had her for all those years.  She was truly a faithful companion.

I'm grateful that my ex husband and I were able to forgive each other and start up a new... friendship.  I would not have imagined this a few years ago, but forgiveness is a powerful tool -- and cancer seems to completely change the landscape.  He really showed up for a harrowing summer and survived and we are all so grateful. 

2013 ends quietly... I feel that life has forced so many of us to seek comfort in being quiet, by going within. 

One of my favorite pieces of advice I heard recently came from the playwright Tracy Letts: spend at least 30 minutes a day staring at the wall, or looking out the window.  I don't have much of a view, but I think I will start at my wall and give thanks for this past year and gratitude for the coming one.  Just being alive is reason enough to be celebrate. 

Emily Squires' pond in Lake Ariel, Pa.  August 2013.

Stepping Through Fear

When I was young, I was relatively fearless—I loved climbing trees and diving off high diving boards.

After college, I sold my car and went to Europe to travel for several months and when I returned, I moved 3,000 miles away from my family to Los Angeles to pursue a career in show business.  I moved with a boyfriend, but quickly broke up with him when I realized I was only 23 years-old and had no desire to get married right away.

I had an interesting dating life, slow at first, but the highlight was my boyfriend, Doug, whom I adored and who happened to be the stepson of Art Carney.  We hung around with Art, Doug’s mom, and people like Robert Altman, Lily Tomlin and Lucille Ball. 

If I was intimidated to be in the presence of some of the greats who came to parties, you wouldn’t have known it.  I admit to being too shy to play charades with Lucy. She often jumped up after someone finished their turn and said, “Wait!  This is how you should have done it!” —and then proceeded to act it out her way, which quite honestly was always better.

One Father’s Day we were at Chasen’s and a parade of celebrities joined our table, including Frank Sinatra, Jack Haley (the Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz”), David Janssen, and Liza Minnelli.  I appreciated those incredible opportunities to meet  people whose work I admired so much while my own fledgling career was beginning to take off.  For my birthday one year, Art wrote me a poem.  This was the first stanza:

Here’s to our dear Robin Amos,

who at this point is not quite so famous.

But she’s sure a fine gal and much more than a pal,

and I’m sure that in time she will tame us.

I became a television writer at 27 (“The Young and the Restless”) and then a couple of years later, I started making the rounds at studios to pitch movie ideas—and that was when my confidence started to wane.

There weren’t many women screenwriters in those days.  Nora Ephron wasn’t well known yet and the adage, “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it” felt true for me.  I soon got married, retreated to New York (telling myself that there were many great screenwriters in New York) and became a mother.  Though I kept writing, I still struggled with confidence and watched enviously as my photographer husband travelled around the world for work and I kept plugging away at writing. 

I had readings of screenplays and plays and started writing for a website, Club Mom.   Ten years ago, my own mother got really sick and for the last 7 years of her life,  I found myself becoming a caregiver.  It was one of the accomplishments of my life I’m  most proud of and yet the endless doctor’s visits, hospital stays, hospice care (twice), late night phone calls, racing out to emergency rooms… all made me put my writing on a back burner. I began to feel lost—and when it was all over, when my mother finally died—everything fell away.  My marriage ended, my daughter (now grown) moved 3,000 miles away and in my 50’s, I had to totally recreate my life.

Talk about fear.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard: “catastrophe is what often re-orders our lives.”  It felt like a catastrophe when I didn’t quite know what to do with myself after a 23 year marriage and all the care-giving I had done.  All I had left was two dogs and myself.

And…two big phobias.  One was flying.  I had always loved flying, but on a trip when my daughter was four and we were on a flight from Cancun back to New York, we flew through a Nor’easter, hugging the east coast.   The flight attendants barely stood up.  Fortunately, my daughter slept through the entire flight.  If she had woken up, she would have seen me clutching the armrests or holding the hand of the stranger sitting next to me.  After that, flying became something that I avoided—and if I had to fly, I would do so with a bottle of Valium or Xanax, ready to take the entire bottle, if I needed to. 

My other fear was speaking in public.  I was one of those kids in school who often raised her hand (except in math) and had always been comfortable speaking up, but after so many years as a writer, I was used to living a more solitary life and had no need to speak in front of groups of people.

At one point, I went to career coach and when he asked me to tell him the story of my life I had him laughing so much that he announced, “You must write and speak!  You are a performer!”  I said, “Yes!  I love that!”  and walked out of his office and told everyone I was going to be a writer and speaker—then never once had the nerve to try it.  Everything I wrote I gave to others to perform, even though a part of me thought, “I would like to try that…”  But fear stopped me cold.

Three years after my husband and I separated, I found myself in a public speaking class called OWN THE ROOM. I was terrified.

Privately, I said to the coach, Bill Hoogterp, “What if I’m the only person you’ve ever taught who could never get it?”  Bill laughed and told me to tell everyone in the classroom what I said.  They all laughed—they all felt the same way.  I found my voice in that class and around the same time I performed a solo show about being a caregiver to my mother called “Not My Mother.”  The first time I performed it I discovered what “cotton mouth” means—you literally cannot speak, your mouth is so dry.  It was embarrassing, but I learned to always have a bottle of water nearby, just in case. 

Now, exactly one year later, my life has taken a 360 degree turn.  I coach others with OWN THE ROOM, something unimaginable to me before, and I love it.  Our soon to be new mayor, Bill DeBlasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, shared about her own fear of speaking in public in a recent article in the Daily News. [ http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/chirchirlane-mccray-fear-public-speaking-article-1.1541131#ixzz2oKwTrEgU] Addressing a room full of people, she froze. “Inwardly, not outwardly, I was shaking,” McCray said. “I just stopped.”

McCray also came to OWN THE ROOM to overcome her fear and has become a great speaker.  As she says now about public speaking, “It’s not that there’s any magic to it. It’s like a muscle. You just do it, and do it, and do it again.”

Life and fear seem to walk hand in hand, but I see when I step through the fear, life gets bigger.  And more scary.  And more fulfilling. The bottom line is that when I coach others and help them be more effective speakers by sharing their stories, I find the strength I need to tell my own stories. 

Breathing helps—and knowing that if you have a message, taking it out into the world requires courage and a big bottle of Xan…no, never mind. 

Courage.   It requires courage. 

White Christmas

"When I'm worried and I can't sleep...I count my blessings instead of sheep...
and I fall asleep, counting my blessings..."

Tonight I went across the street to The Crosby Street Hotel to see "White Christmas" - one of my favorite holiday movies.  It was co-written by Mel Frank, an old friend, someone I was very close to when I lived in California.  Mel's mother lived above me at the Harper House in West Hollywood and we became friends.  Eventually, I got to know Mel and most of the Frank family.  Seeing "White Christmas" or any of the movies Mel wrote or directed is always very special for me.  I can always hear his voice in the dialogue. 

And speaking of counting my blessings...here are a few of mine... my daughter,  Zoe, my loftmate, Abigail, good friends...family, Samson, the dog who is staying with us for a few weeks, my health, our lovely home...good neighbors, NYC...my work...my writing...

So much to be grateful for.  And it was also a difficult year.  We lost Emily Squires, our dear friend the night before Thanksgiving 2012, and then we lost our beloved Lucy on May 5th, 2013.  Then Zoe's dad was diagnosed with lung cancer -- he's doing well now, but it was a rough summer.  The play, Scrambled Eggs, was up this spring and we had a fantastic 3 week run.  I've gone to Dublin, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta and Charlotte for work.  I've done more traveling this past year than I have in many years.  It's been challenging and rewarding.

And I'm proud of the women in Congress who broke the stalemate over the debt crisis.  And Obama for getting his health care program up and running (imperfectly, yes, but still today is the deadline and millions of people have signed up.)

Laws are being passed all over the country to all gay couples to marry!  And next - gun control reform.  That must happen in 2014.  That will happen. 

So many blessings. Happy 2014 to anyone who reads this!  Onward. 

Men, Divorce and Love

My most recent Huff Po blog.  Since everything else in the world is such a mess (government shut-down, I'm filled with anger about all of that) -- I thought I'd focus on something lighter.  

One night, a few years ago, I went to a party for a professional organization I am a member of.  Most people there were getting pretty drunk, feeling the effects of the lousy economy.  I saw an old friend of mine, someone I hadn’t seen in many years.  He flirted with me and told me, “I’m married and I’m miserable. I hate my wife and I hate my life.”  I was a bit shocked at his honesty, but I had to admit I wasn’t particularly happy either.   He also told me that he’d had a crush on me when we were young—and would I have dated him back then?  I lied and said, “Oh, yes. I would have dated you.”  Truthfully, I wasn’t particularly interested in him way back then.  But now, he had evolved into a mature, attractive man, with a lovely sense of humor, and I was interested.  In fact, I went home and had my first erotic dream in a long time—and it was about him.    

Two years later we were both divorced.  Are we happier divorced?  Yes, at least I know I am.  Has he asked me out on a date?  No.  But I haven’t asked him either.  I have flirted with him and though it would make such a great Hollywood story if we did hook up, life isn’t all Hollywood, is it?  The point is, we were both miserable and we had the courage and honesty to do something about it. 

I don’t know if he initiated his divorce or his wife did.  In my case, I was the first one to point out that the patient (our marriage) was on life support and barely alive and then a few months later, it was my husband who pulled the plug.  Excellent teamwork, I have to admit.

We actually were a great team on some levels, we functioned well in so many ways. But there were simply too many losses, we were the Buffalo Bills of marriage.  One damn loss after another.  It was as if life was saying, “Just because you’ve suited up for so long doesn’t mean you have to stay in the game. Run!  Get out of there!  You’re dying inside.”

So I thought, well, if I can have so much fun flirting at that party there must be hundreds of interesting men out there.  And there are, probably hundreds of thousands, in the tri-state area alone.  But finding one that I actually want to spend time with, talk to, sleep with, and forsaking all others for—that’s a different matter. 

A friend of mine, also mature, but never married, told me her theory about dating men over 50.  Once the need to procreate is past, they are in no rush to get married.  And from my own research —neither are millions of women.  I’m reading a book called Sex at Dawn and one of its main points is that we are truly meant to be promiscuous, so what’s the rush to find Mr. or Ms. Right?  (Who, in fact, really don’t exist.)  What’s the rush to cook, clean, shop, spend all your time with one person?  Once your kids are grown, it’s actually quite nice to do whatever the hell you want to do. 

The truth is, I like being single and I certainly don’t want to settle for someone unless I totally adore him and he totally adores me.  I believe that is possible.  I know that is what I would want next time around.

I do know women who dated like mad after their divorce and met lots of men on-line and slept with most of them and then eventually, after a couple of years, got married.  Well, I know one woman. But she is very happy and she said the guy she married was nothing like she imagined he would be and it’s all worked out beautifully. 

Sometimes I think that like everything else in my life, when the time is right, when it’s supposed to happen, it will happen.  My mate will materialize.  I may have to do the work: go on-line, talk on the phone, go out for coffees, dinners, walks in the park, send emails and texts (just thinking about all of this makes me want to lie down).

Then again my neighbor reads Tarot cards and the cards say, “You know him already.  He’s someone you’ve known for a long time.”  So I look at every man I know and I think, “Is it you?  Is it you?”  So far it isn’t him. 

I have male friends I adore.  But moving from the friend category to the lover/partner category is fraught with danger.  I see a big X when I think about attempting that with any of my lovely men friends.

I did have love after my divorce.  I met D at a grief group (he’d lost his brother and his dad, I’d lost my mother).  We became best friends and hung out all the time  and watched movies, and rode our bikes and talked and we were inseparable.  He wanted it to be more and I knew it wasn’t supposed to be a relationship relationship.  I just wasn’t ready.  My heart was pretty shut down after my divorce and I cared too much for him to just fool around.  I met some men on-line and fooled around with them – they were lovely, but unavailable, both by time and inclination.  My friend D started dating one of my best friends, P, and that nearly killed me.  It nearly killed her too because it didn’t last and everyone’s heart was a tiny bit shattered. 

Now D is with the perfect woman for him, L, I love her almost as much as I love him.  We go to Sunday night movies together as a group—sometimes the three of us, sometimes with other friends from the alphabet.  I still love him deeply and I know he loves me too.

So where is Mr. Next Guy?  Beats me.  But truthfully, I know he’s coming.  One of these days.  Maybe it will be at another party and someone will say, “I had a crush on you back in 1983…would you have gone out with me then?”

And maybe I’ll have the courage to say, “No, probably not in 1983, but I definitely would now, in 2013.”

It's been so long...

I have been so busy with life and challenges and writing for the Huffington Post, that I haven't had a chance to write on the blog.

So I'm just going to say that more will follow and I will try to keep updating.

I'm grateful for Huffington Post, but I miss writing here too.

My beloved Lucy died on May 5th and my ex-husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer this summer.  He is doing pretty well and I hope that he will continue to improve.  If Valerie Harper can go on Dancing with the Stars, I am hopeful that he can have some good years left.  Here's an old photo of Lucy, when she was just 4 and my ex, Steve.  Those were happy days.

Scrambled Eggs opens in NYC!

I have worked on this play alone, with a dramaturg, and with my writing partner, for many years.  Often I would say to myself, "Why are you still working on this?  It's a waste of time."  But something compelled me to go back to it and to keep re-working it and refining it.  And the joy of the writing always motivated me to keep at it.  And the desire to entertain and also be of service also inspired me.

I never really thought that someday it would open in a theater in New York, with an excellent cast and director and that people would come and see it.  I never really imagined that there would be an audience for this play and that people in New York, one of the toughest cities in the world to succeed in theater, would actually laugh and really enjoy it.

This entire experience has been (so far, at least) a labor of love, community, creativity and joy.  There have been difficult times, creative arguments, some scary moments, lots of stress, but overall, so far it's been a dream come true and everyone from the assistant stage manager to the director is enthralled with this production.  I think the fact that our director has set a tone of generosity and respect for everyone, has given us all a freedom to be part of the creative process, enjoy every moment, to stay in the now, to take each day as it comes.

I decided to look at one of my Pema Chodron's books this morning and opened to this passage:

"We never know

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen.  When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know.  Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.  We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know.  We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall.  When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story.  It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.  

I read somewhere about a family who had only one son.  They were very poor.  This son was extremely precious to them, and the only thing that mattered to his family was that he bring them some financial support and prestige.  Then he was thrown from a horse and crippled.  It seemed like the end of their lives.  Two weeks after that, the army came into the village and took away all the healthy, strong men to fight in the war, and this young man was allowed to stay behind and take care of his family.  

Life is like that.  We don't know anything.  We call something bad, we call it good.  But really we just don't know.  

Learning to live with not knowing has been a challenge for me, but I'm definitely getting better at it.  Like so many things in life, it is a practice and you just continue working on it, not until you get it right or perfectly, but until it becomes second nature.  And I don't know if that ever really happens, because even someone as enlightened as Pema Chodron says she struggles with day to day challenges.

Just being alive is a gift though.  It's almost May, the trees are filled with gorgeous blossoms.  And I look forward to tomorrow night, to being back in the theater with my wonderful creative family.

Life as an experiment

I haven't written on this blog in a long time.  It's mostly because I've been extremely busy and so much is happening.

Our play "Scrambled Eggs" is opening this coming week.  It's very exciting and also very stressful.  I have never had much confidence, so this is really a stretch for me.  I know that every creative endeavor, when you put it into the world, requires some nerves of steel, which I don't have.  But I do have the awareness that life is about taking risks and sometimes you come out okay and sometimes you don't.

The fun of this experience has been in the work.  I have enjoyed writing this for a long time and working with this cast is a joy.

Also, I've continued writing for the Huffington Post on various subjects - faith, loss, grief, dancing, divorce, women leaders.  It's been a great outlet for me to write anything I am interested in.

Today, I have mostly been obsessing about the play and how the dress rehearsal had some major mistakes and that the leading man, like me, seems to have terrible allergies.  And on and on......my mind can go into the most imaginative and creative disasters.

So once again, Pema Chodron came to the rescue. I was cleaning out my wallet and I came across this passage, that I carry around with me (and forget to look at):

"My teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche encouraged us to lead our lives as an experiment, a suggestion that has been very important to me.  When we approach life as an experiment we are willing to approach it this way and that way because, either way, we have nothing to lose.

This immense flexibility is something I learned from watching Trungpa Rinpoche.  His enthusiasm enabled him to accomplish an amazing amount in his life. When some things didn't work out, Rinpoche's attitude was 'no big deal.'  If it's time for something to flourish, it will; if it's not time, it won't.  

The trick is not getting caught in hope and fear.  We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress.  Instead, we should just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead."  

As I published this, I noticed that my last blog post included this same passage!  Interesting coincidence.  I guess it's important that I take this in.

Turning a corner

We're now halfway through winter and after a rough start, I find that I am feeling quite content.  Maybe part of the reason is having work that I enjoy, making sure I exercise and dance, and finding I can bounce back from feeling blue.  Realizing that it's easier to go with the feeling and let it move through me, rather than fight it.  Because it does pass and the less I fight it, the faster is seems to go.



I wanted to share three quotes that I'm sure I've written about before, but really resonate with me and I hope they do with you:

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.....

Theodore Roosevelt


"If you want to avoid criticism: do nothing; say nothing; be nothing."

Aristotle


"My teacher Trungpa Rinpoche encouraged us to lead our lives as an experiment, a suggestion that has been very important to me.  When we approach life as an experiment we are willing to approach it this way and that way because, either way, we have nothing to lose.

This immense flexibility is something I learned from watching Trungpa Rinpoche.  His enthusiasm enabled him to accomplish and amazing amount in his life.  When some things didn't work out, Rinpoche's attitude was 'it's no big deal.'  If it's time for something to flourish, it will; if it's not time, it won't. 

The trick is not getting caught in hope and fear.  We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress.  Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead."

Pema Chodron "No Time to Lose"

I've also been re-reading "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.  I can't believe how much I'm learning, particularly about relationships.  Even just saying that there are only 6 more weeks till spring is the antithesis of Tolle's book.  There is only now!  Enjoy it! 

Winter is hard

I have never had an easy time in the winter.  I was just looking back at previous posts over the years and every winter I feel blue.  I just came from the gym, so that always lifts my mood.  Exercise, meditation, reading, gratitude... all of those help.

I'm listening to President Obama talk now about one of the young students, Grace, who was killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  I hope that he can succeed in getting effective gun control laws passed.

Here is a quote from Pema, who always seems to be the person I turn to when I am feeling down:


"Rejoice in ordinary life"

"We can learn to rejoice in even the smallest blessings our life holds. It is easy to miss our own good fortune; often happiness comes in ways we don't even notice. It's like a cartoon I saw of an astonished-looking man saying, 'What was that?' The caption below read, 'Bob experiences a moment of well-being.' The ordinariness of our good fortune can make it hard to catch.

The key is to be here, fully connected with the moment, paying attention to the details of ordinary life. By taking care of ordinary things - our pots and pans, our clothing, our teeth - we rejoice in them. When we scrub a vegetable or brush our hair, we are expressing appreciation: friendships toward ourselves and toward the living quality that is found in everything. This combination of mindfulness and appreciation connects us fully with reality and brings us joy."

The path of the bodhisattva-warrior

"Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior.  The practices of meditation, loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equinimity are our tools.  With the help of these practices, we can uncover the soft spot of bodhichitta, the tenderness of the awakened heart.  We will find that tenderness in sorrow and in gratitude.  We will find it behind the hardness of rage and in the shakiness of fear.  It is available in loneliness as well as in kindness.  

Many of us prefer practices that will not cause discomfort, yet at the same time we want to be healed.  But bodhichitta training doesn't work that way.  A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next.  We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe.  But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty.  This not knowing is part of the adventure, and it's always what makes us afraid.  

Bodhichitta training offers no promise of happy endings.  Rather this "I" who wants to find security -- who wants something to hold on to -- can finally learn to grow up.  The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.  How do we practice with difficulty, with our emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day?"
Pema Chodron

I haven't written any posts since November, when my dear friend Emily Squires was in the hospital.  Sadly, she died a few days later.

I just haven't had the heart to write anything because the fall was so bleak and I'm still struggling to get through the days.  I miss Em and life feels so uncertain. This morning, I had to read some Pema Chodron to be reminded that this is just the part of life that is real - that we do live in uncertainty and we always will.

When I fight my sadness, it always seems to dig in deeper, so I will try to sit with it.  It's a bleak January day.  We went through Hurricane Sandy (which isn't over for thousands of people whose homes were destroyed.)  We saw a horrible school shooting and still there is a battle over gun control.

I'm sitting with sadness this morning and I'm trying not to fight it.  I know this too shall pass and that I have so much to be grateful for.  Emily is no longer with us and that is truly sad.  I just had a thought though, to call a mutual friend this morning, who is probably also missing Emily.

It's hard to lose someone you love and I loved Emily.  I'm watching my dog, Lucy, falling apart.  She is 17 now.  I'm not sure of the future, but then who is?  I wish for happy endings, but if I'm to be a real warrior, I guess I have to accept that there is no promise of happy endings, just this moment, and growing up and relating to discomfort.

"How do we practice with difficulty, with our emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day."