Still Dreaming

I wrote poems then plays then novels then screenplays for 30 years with minimal commercial success – but always heard what a great writer I was and that I had great potential and I kept on writing and writing and writing more scripts, imagining and dreaming that one day a script might get financed and cast and produced, dreaming I would see my words coming out of actor’s mouths on the screen to get adulated enough to get into an international film festival, dreaming that day would happen  - and I got close, so close to having one great movie made that had the right dream director and dream actor and well…it never got out of dream ‘development’ and ended up in eternal nightmare mode – so in harsh or gratitude reality (depending how I look at it) the closest I got to accolades at an international film festival was the thanks I received  from my son last week, who flew me and S up to Toronto with him for a film he produced that was accepted up there– for us to be nanny grandpa and grandma to our wild 9 month old DZ: taking care of him in the hotel and nearby vicinities while my kid went to the premier screening of his movie and after dinner parties and next day meetings while we juggled, wake up time and feeding time and naps and moods that changed in a second from baby joy to baby misery and simultaneously eating take out Thai while changing poop filled diapers - and taking local walks with the stroller to a nearby park that had multifarious dog statues with streams of water coming out of their mouths into a fountain and the underground shopping malls and the Toronto Aquarium and  following DZ throughout the fancy hotel lobby while he crawled at top speed past movie stars, producers, writers, agents and all those successful c- suckers hanging around schmoozing – that triggered my inner FOMO to the hilt, while all DZ wanted to do was crawl and sit and grin at me behind him, knowing he was safe with old grandpops to have a baby blast cruise around on the rug.

My kid ‘s movie was a success with accolades.  He and our daughter in law, (who is a lit agent and was busy every second) arranged to take DZ while we went to a press screening. The movie touched on when  youth and beauty and sex appeal are gone…well it was about an aging Vegas showgirl, nothing to even do with me -  but I wept and wept and wept throughout the entirety because what hit me beyond the beautifully sad and funny script and stellar performances was how I wasted my youth and whatever beauty and sex appeal I had with my drug induced choices of drug dealing and modeling and fucking doing porn movies,  instead of doing well in high school and going to a good college  and getting a master’s degree to be a full-fledged writer that could have started out in my 20’s so I could…I mean I didn’t even start to write until I was 35. I started to think – what the fuck is happening to me? What am I here for? Why did I really come to Toronto? What is the message? Is this a message of suffering? Haven’t I suffered enough?…

Only answering to S when she saw my agonized face and asked what was wrong. 

 “I’m fine, it’s nothing, I’m fine,”  I said, keeping the horrors of self-imposed failures within the corridors of my own mind.

 Until I got back with DZ and was told just by looking into his mesmerizing aqua green eyes that the message was to stay in the moment with him, stay with his love for me and my love for him and everything would be okay. My kid was so grateful when the four days were done and we were on our way back to LA, helping to feed and entertain and cuddle and change diapers on the plane. “I can’t thank you enough, D,” he said. “Means a lot to me.”

My dreams have been fulfilled beyond what I could have imagined. And I will keep on writing -