But I feel like I knew her. I feel like she is that old friend—you know the one you don't talk with very often, but when you do it is as if no time has passed. I feel like I knew her because she often wrote of her own life experience, wove her own personality into her characters.
Her movies are among my favorites, the DVD's that sit in the storage box in my bedroom closet—the DVD's that I watch when my husband is out-of-town, or I need a good laugh, or even a good cry.
Nora Ephron created female characters who are smart, ambitious, funny and flawed—characters to whom I can relate.
Last night on the evening news, they offered this quote which had been taken from a commencement address she gave in 1996 at Wellesley College, her alma mater.
Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.
Most of the time it really is a choice, isn't it?
Kathleen Kelly, the Meg Ryan character in the movie, You've Got Mail, put it this way.
Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead such a small life—well, valuable, but small—and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.
I have spent the last few weeks, trying to become the heroine, not the victim--trying to be brave and make brave decisions. I am beginning to realize that I am never going to feel like I have enough time, so why am I waiting to set a pretty table on the deck and eat outside, to use the quilt that was handed down from my great Aunt Weezie, to eat dessert off of the hand painted dessert plates that cannot be loaded into the dishwasher?
Why did I stop writing when writing is what I love to do?
I don't really want an answer. I just wanted to send this cosmic question out into the void.
So good night, dear void.
As usual, Kathy, you are right on. You continue to rock in my book.
ReplyDelete