It Happened to Me

It was bound to happen at some point. As a PA (read: slave) on Mr. and Mrs. Smith during its hellish post-production phase, I figured it was certain to happen that I would have a run-in with the man himself. I just didn’t think that it would involve eye contact and, yes, an exchange of words.

I had been slaving away as a second assistant to one of the producers of the film, working directly under the first assistant, who was all too happy to wield power over me, the green college student working illegally for free. (After all, who would pass up an opportunity to possibly come in contact with a living god? Certainly not any breathing, heterosexual female.) It was getting down to the wire, though, looking less likely that I would actually have a brush with A List stardom. Until I heard the good news: we were doing re-shoots.

Re-shoots on a project like Mr. and Mrs. Smith involve a lot of stress, a lot of long hours, and, for me, a lot of running around. Being that I was still in college, I didn’t make it to all of them, but I made it to enough to solidify my desire to be in the film industry. The first day I was up extra-early in order to make the 7 AM call time. But the hour wasn’t on my mind. What was on my mind was looking my very best—on the off chance that the rumors weren’t true and Brad was, in fact, on the market. That first day I did have a brush with him at the craft service table. However, I was too immobilized by his beauty to make anything more than a guttural sound that was enough to send me slinking back to the production trailer for a significant portion of the day.

But the real experience, the real memory that is forever seared in my mind happened on the last day of re-shoots over a month later. After a rushed morning of shopping for “spoiled celebrities,” as my “boss” said, we raced through LA traffic to make it to the tightly-secured location where the final shoot was to take place. Our purchases included several bottles of mid-grade wine for the cast to celebrate the end of the affair. When the day was coming to a close, I ended up ordered to serve the wine.

I watched him like a hawk as he chatted and laughed with his co-stars and the crew (diplomatically, I noticed, avoiding “Angie”), my heart pounding so loudly I feared it would give away my amateur status in regards to being in the presence of such celebrity. He wound his way over to where I was standing, shaking wine glass in hand, waiting to serve. And then, he smiled—at me. Sending my heart straight to my nether regions and causing a lump in my throat so big I thought I would pass out.

“Red or white?” I squeaked, positive that I was giving myself away as a psychopathic fan.

“What are you, the wine girl?”

I giggled—I actually giggled—and said, face flushed, “I guess I am. What’ll it be?” I swallowed the lump and thought, “Be cool, Caroline, be cool.”

“I don’t know, what do you think goes better with a bike?” (He had ridden his motorcycle to set that day.)

“Um, red?”

“Red it is.”

And then with a wink and a smile, he turned away, and our encounter was over. But I will forever be able to say: I served wine to Brad Pitt.

Nantucket: My Love, My Solace

January 29, 2007

In a life marked with turmoil, sadness, and untold despair, the one thing that remained a constant comfort throughout my childhood was our summer holidays on Nantucket. No matter where we were living (and many moves put us in many different places year to year), no matter what sort of state I was in at the time, one thing was as certain as death and taxes: Nantucket.

Every year as spring rolled around I would eagerly anticipate the long drive to Hyannis from upstate New York, or southern Connecticut, or the drive from Logan Airport when we were living in Texas and had to rent a car. Our annual trips to Nantucket were one thing that seemed to put us all in a good mood; waiting at the loading dock before getting on the Eagle we were filled with the excitement that only pre-adolescent children can possess—but to some degree, we could sense it in our parents, too. Dad always seemed a bit more relaxed as he bought us lobster rolls and clam chowder before driving onto the boat; Mom would happily pull out the cards and Mad Libs for the ferry ride over. And the closer we got to the island, the more intense the feelings became: we could feel the rush of the salt air in our hair, smell the honeysuckle from miles away. As soon as we rounded Brant Point and began the slow ease into the harbor, the grey-shingled houses with their white trim seemed to smile at me and whisper, “Everything will be okay now.”

Clinically depressed since the ripe old age of nine, I had a different sort of childhood than one would have assumed looking from the outside in. We had a nice family, well-off (summers on Nantucket) and non-divorced parents. I was accomplished in school and could hold my own on a sports field. But I struggled in the throes of depression throughout a significant part of my childhood and through my adolescence, and the one thing that always brought me relief was our time on Nantucket.

From the bike riding to the weather (rain or shine) to the cobblestones in town, Nantucket was always there for me, reassuring in its consistency and calming in its relaxed, summer-town atmosphere. I knew I could ride my bike to Nobaside to escape any stress at home and just lying on the beach would bring me peace. I could get up early for breakfast with my dad at Arno’s, and, later on, at the Juice Bar. My siblings and I could sneak away and defy our parents’ reminders not to run down the dunes and do it anyway; we could be freer than we could anywhere else because, after all, Nantucket is the safest place in Christendom; we could test our father’s limits by swimming out “just a little farther” at Surfside. Cliff Road would always take me to Something Natural and riding through the cemetery at night would always be creepy in that way that New England cemeteries are. I could dig for sand crabs and, after a storm, brave the waves at Cisco. And everything, momentarily, was all right.

Many momentous occasions in my life have also occurred on Nantucket: an almost-first kiss; my first step into womanhood; my first sip of alcohol; a brief weekend spent with a friend before she went off to college lying under the stars on Madaket Beach sharing the depths of our souls. For these reasons alone Nantucket will always be special to me, but she is so much more than these incidents; she is a feeling unto herself, a lifestyle not found anywhere else, a calm promise that can never be broken.

During one particularly difficult time during high school—I had suffered a brutal back injury the spring of my junior year and was more or less debilitated for six months—our annual trip to Nantucket was replaced with a trip to Hawaii, instead. As much fun in the sun as Hawaii is, there was something different about this trip—a beach is not just a beach no matter where you are. The clear blue reefs of the tropical paradise were no match for the dark blue-green Atlantic waters; the smell of hibiscus and orchid leis were a weak replacement for hydrangea bushes and walls of honeysuckle. It was then that I realized what an important part of my life Nantucket was, how I had come to count on it as my therapy. My love affair with Nantucket had grown and matured through the years out of an unrealized longing for something to quell the storms raging inside of me; before I could understand it, Nantucket had found a way to ease the pain I felt and despair I could not seem to escape.

Any time I smell honeysuckle, or feel the faint tinge of salt in the air, or pass a weathered shingled house, I am transported back in time to a place where life was simple, where I had a brief respite from my demons. Nantucket has always been, and, I venture to say, always will be, the one place on Earth I truly feel at home. Since I’ve gotten older and have stopped going to the Island every summer, I have felt an emptiness that I know can only be replaced by a winding trip through Seven Seas or a wade through the shallow waters at Steps Beach.

As I’m beginning to enter adulthood—slowly, but determinedly—and attempting to put my past behind me, I’m realizing with greater clarity what it means to have such strong emotions attached to a place. Nantucket is more than just an island, it is an attitude, a state of mind, a haven that I can return to if not in person, then at least in spirit. Whether it be through an Eric Holch painting or a photo album or To Gillian on her 37th Birthday, I have learned to find Nantucket in every day things. It has brought me hope when I thought there was none, happiness when all I could see was sorrow, and bright memories when the present seemed so bleak. Nantucket has proven to me that one thing is certain: you can always go home again.

Why I Hate New York

January 3, 2007

I find New York City to be such a cliché that anyone who moves there in their twenties immediately loses respect in my eyes. Including my own parents.

To be fair, the allure of Manhattan is understandable. For the average person, who has grown up somewhere in between the two coveted coasts, New York City holds in it the promise of everything that Middle America lacks: fame, fortune, success, love, excitement. New York City is far more accessible than a place like Los Angeles, its loose rival; New York City is, in fact, the historic gateway to America, boasting Ellis Island and a lasting Lady Liberty, her light a beacon to immigrants and college graduates alike. The heartbeat and lifeblood of the city are very real and palpable, which makes it even more appealing to someone just embarking into a brave new world. New York is a cultural, artistic, and business Mecca; none of these things can be denied. But New York is also an excuse; it is the easy out; it is the obvious answer. And for these reasons I find New York to be so despicable and deplorable that any of my peers who eagerly leap towards the city after graduation cause me to shake my head and become embarrassed that I am even acquainted with them.

Part of the reason that I hate New York is because it has lured away many people in my life who I would have rather stayed with me, near me, anywhere but there: the longtime girlfriend wanting to be an actress opting for the stage rather than the screen; the sporadic lover whose attention I could never quite hold; the best friend from college who found the city to offer a life far more simple than Los Angeles. Part of my antagonism towards New York is the result of a defense of Los Angeles, where I have inexplicably (and, admittedly, also somewhat clichéd-ly) found myself at this point in my life. I chose Los Angeles; everyone else apparently chose exactly the opposite, resulting in my need to defend my choice vehemently.

But New York also is a place built upon romance that can not possibly hold true that it disgusts me that I once associated myself with people who fall ignorant to its empty promises. I lived for quite some time during my childhood in upstate New York and consequently visited the city several times before my adolescence; at the time, it was a breathtaking, fascinating, glamorous city; far more interesting, certainly, than Buffalo, where I lived, and Boston, where I spent my summers with my mother’s family. I loved the action, the museums, the liveliness of everything. But then again, I was merely a child; children are easily sucked in by oversized toy stores and gargantuan ice cream sundaes.

The most significant aspect of what I like to call that New York Cliché is that the people in their immediate post-collegiate years who choose to move there somehow think that they are instantly these chic adults by simple virtue of the fact that they live there. You know the type: they cram themselves like sardines, four people to a one-bedroom sixth-story walk-up apartment on the Upper East Side; they read the Village Voice because that instantly conveys a level of coolness otherwise unattainable; they stop at the City Bakery for hot chocolate. The young women picture themselves to be replicas of Carrie/Samantha/Charlotte/Miranda; the young men, Patrick Bateman, in perhaps the most amusing irony of all given the fact that the vast majority of college men don’t realize that American Psycho is a satire.

My first visit to New York City post-childhood came the summer after my sophomore year of college, for fourth of July weekend to visit a friend from university. It was significant because it was my first visit to a 9/11 site; 9/11, having been a particularly traumatizing event for me considering the fact that I did not directly know anybody affected, holds with it a weight all its own that is above New York itself. I had sensed long before the visit that I would not like Manhattan upon my return, but I vowed to look at it with fresh eyes and the vigor only a college coed can have. Unfortunately, I found it to be a city so full of itself and up its own ass that even Ground Zero lacked the emotional meaning I expected it to have for me.

It’s not that I can’t handle the brusqueness New Yorkers pride themselves on; Angelenos can have as much of an attitude as any grouping of people around. It’s not that I don’t find New York to offer a plethora of lifestyle and activity avenues that aren’t found most places; these things, to be certain, are something New York rightfully prides itself on. It’s the significance that people in their 20s give New York; it’s the ignorance that my peer group somehow has come to adopt as a collective whole that has led it to believe that New York is heaven on earth; the most outrageous move a young person can make. New York, in fact, is the Cliché of Clichés.

The most intriguing aspect of all of this anti-New York sentiment to me is the fact that I, too, find myself drawn in by the romance and apparent anything-can-happen feel of the city, and want to live there at some point while I’m still young and single. Of course I want to: who doesn’t want to be a successful young ingénue with her pseudo-boho apartment on her oh-so-perfect block of brownstones, wearing her delightfully charming Jimmy Choos and tapping away on her Mac, dating a string of handsome and eclectic men. This, however, is the myth of New York that still makes it the number one hotspot for post-college children to descend upon. It is a city built upon myths; myths that should be, if not shattered, then at least shaken a little bit.

You see, New York has been reduced to an idea, a concept, a pose; its inhabitants, the ultimate poseurs. It has become a parody of itself, pastiche within post-modern pastiche; it has developed into the exact ridiculous portrait of wannabes and moochers that Ellis started to lay into the chemicals with American Psycho. This is so beyond insane that I am forced, by my own stubbornness and desire to go against the grain, to hate New York.

And so, I hate NY.