It has possibly been 35 years since I’ve had a snow day in Atlanta. I have a vague memory of little me seating in a window seat with a glass of water. For Christmas that year I had received the latest 80’s Barbie, her hair became neon with a temperature change. As I dunked her head in the cup as it gently snowed on our lawn at Margaret Mitchell Ridge.
As I was trying to leave DC flights were getting delayed and moved. I wanted to make it back to Charleston but said a little prayer, “Lord put me where I need to be.” After my direct flight to Charleston got cancelled I booked another one through Atlanta, that one got delayed too so I knew I would miss my connection. By the time I made it to Atlanta the next flight had been cancelled and the reality that I would be in Atlanta for the night set in. I called my mom and booked a car in the hopes of making it to my grandparent’s house where she was currently residing. Nina and Bubba as I called my Grands have both passed away and my Mom has spent the last couple of years deciding if she should keep their home or move on. Some of those decisions were forced on her when she had to put her younger sister in a memory care facility last year and has slowly watched her best friend fade away, most recollection of their childhood and a life well spent have been erased.
I arrived late to Atlanta after leaving DC and had to get a driver as I did not want my mother to brave the cold and icy roads. In the south we are not equipped for these once in a generation storms so everyone honkers down. When I finally made my way out of the airport and got to my driver we started talking and he was a sweet man from India who had never seen snow. It was cute but I immediately became skeptical as we ventured over the river and through the woods my late grandparents house in Peachtree City, normally a 30 min voyage. I was hopeful as the highways had yet to freeze over but once we broke off the main thoroughfare and wound around lake he began to skid. “Oh my Gooood,” in his darling Indian accent. “Slow and steady” I reminded him, “if you skid just relax, hitting the brakes will only make it worse.” I wanted to offer to drive but have been told I have a way of emasculating men. He had my life in his hands and I wanted to keep him confident.
A hill a few miles from home became the pièce de résistance. Again, I said a little prayer, a mile more Lord. I can walk the remaining distance and my driver could safely get to a main road. In that last bit of effort and we found ourselves in a ditch. Having lived in Colorado and Utah I knew we would be ok if he drove his Toyota Highlander off road just along side. We would be able to grip the dirt of the frozen shoulder even though the road was an ice rink. He wasn’t convinced so we paused for a beat.
Out of nowhere a green 90’s Jeep Cherokee came towards us, I braced myself as it seemed his car was going to slide right into us. He halted his giant mud tires a few feet away hopped out and walked over. “Do y’all need help? I can tow you out and pull you up the hill” he said with frozen breath filling the air between us. “Yes, please!” I exclaimed. I could not believe it another answered prayer, this time I teared up. He reminded me of every boy I went to high school with that possessed a can do attitude. The exact ethos I have been fighting for to reclaim America. One willing to help their fellow man/damsel in distress. I don’t know if it has my time in LA or maybe that people just don’t want to get involved with crisis any more or fear of being sued. His readiness to help felt like a return to the country I had been longing for and the reason I felt compelled get involved in politics.
In no time he had us hitched and was towing us up the hill. Now I was grinning ear to ear as we reached the summit. When he stopped I hopped out to help him release the tow line. I offered him all the cash I had left from DC. He of course refused but I also refused and said “the least I can do is fill your gas tank. Your parents raised you right, now get home to them and hung your Momma.” “Yes Ma’am”, he said “I live right around the corner but could not leave y’all out here.” My driver got me to the safe turn around spot and I walked the last mile in the snow. Little flakes falling all around me and in the quiet night I knew I would be safe. It had been almost two hours since I had left the airport and I knew my mother must be panicked. I didn’t want to worry her more with what was going on and as I busted open the door she was right there waiting for a hug.
About a month ago she had finally made the tough decision to sell my grandparents house and as she was cleaning out closets and pantries had a nasty fall. It resulted in emergency hip surgery. Mother spent most of December in and out of the hospital and has had my sisters on rotation along with nurses now caring for her at home. Due to the snow none of the nurses would have been able to get to her so here I am thinking once again it must be divine intervention.
I’m writing this tale from my grandparents bed and that feels sort of weird not because they have gone to heaven but because kids were not allowed in the boudoir. It was my grandmothers attempt to keep something sacred and a reminder of another generation were kids didn’t rule everything. Now as I watch the sun rise through the Georgia pines I wander when it was that I became the adult.
That fence you see on the left, if you wind around it you will find a dilapidated play house constructed mostly of pine logs. The neighborhood kids and my sisters would spend hours in there playing house. It is not lost on me that I’m trying to get back to my grown up home in California where it is not a game, more like a war zone. My friends and community have spent the last week sifting through ash in what was once their safe places.
Last night as I strolled the halls of my family home I thought of taking this piece of furniture or that painting and having it shipped cross country. I felt fear rise in me that if I took these family heirlooms west they too would be reduced to ash. Moving them to Charleston seems safer. After our hurricanes they will leave still be intact when the water recedes. It’s crazy that I’m reasoning like this and add a bit of grandfathers bourbon to my tea. An attempt to relax from all the trauma of the previous weeks. I joked to my mother that January has been the longest year of my life. And she agrees that it has been hers as well. My mother is not a high maintenance woman, she actually loathes help from others but in her aging has found it necessary and is slowly embracing this stage of life.
Another voice from my past was heard Monday night in the ballroom Waldorf Astoria in Washington, DC. Jewel, I remember getting her first album and learning every word, who will save your soul from those lies that you told boy. Lyrics that could not ring more true as I watched media trying to spin the story that because she sang to us MAHA/MAGA supports that she too must have lost her way and joined our ‘dangerous’ regime. Thank goodness for Jessica Kraus being in attendance with her trusty photographer Denise Bovee. I was too busy wiping away my tears and did not get the shot. I’m still trying to decide if I am a journalist or a mere storyteller. Clearly, I am unable to put my emotions away - a war journalist would have gotten the footage. Protecting herself through the lens and falling apart later or perhaps not at all, hardened but the harsh world of conflict. I chose to stay in the moment and feel what everyone in the room was feeling a special moment of unity. Since my girls got the shot I just found them quoted on Fox News - proof that independent journalist are finally reaching the mainstream.
I went to follow Jewel on Instagram and was heartbroken at the comments. Terrible words being spoken to my Angel. I felt completed to thank her for being there and for entertaining us with a beautiful ballad ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’. Written for the film in 1939 by Harold Arlen, composer, and Yip Harburg, lyricist. Harburg claimed his inspiration was “a ballad for a little girl who was in trouble and wanted to get away from…Kansas. A dry, arid, colorless place. She had never seen anything colorful her life except the rainbow.” I feel that the song perfectly expresses our current journey into technicolor. It felt like Jewel was singing just to me but really she was singing to Cheryl Hines who has been unmercifully hounded by the press these last years. In that moment it felt as though we had all been lifted over the rainbow and these difficult days were behind us, not because we were saved by the orange man but because we had found common ground to lead this country out of dark days and come together for the health of ourselves, our nation and most importantly our children. Reminding me once again of Bobby’s quote, “We must love our children more than we hate each other”
The media has had a field day trying to make Musk out to be a N*zi after his speech at Inauguration. He has been said to be a bit on the spectrum and was trying to express how all of us are in his heart but putting his hand over his heart and then raising it to the crowd. A still shot taken out of context to made him appear to be giving a menacing salute. I hope he buys all these media outlets and restructures them from ground up. He might not even have to do that since failing viewership and sales will render these outlets obsolete. Independent writers are slowly but surely getting their piece of the pie while expanding the collective consciousness.
Just this week the LA times owner has spoken out and vaguely supported our mission. Maybe he can help me find a job, I am sort of refusing to get back into LA real estate as I watched agents jack up rental prices in an attempt to extort money from evacuees and those left homeless but these devastating fires. “Supply and demand” they claimed. “Oh insurance will pay, etc etc.” Not everyone in these hills is a Mel Gibson and most of my celebrity friends live project to project as the local taxes have gotten out of hand and we have nothing to show for it. These profitable projects have come all but come to a halt under Gavin Newsom. He basically broke Hollywood making it impossible to get a film or show off the ground in Los Angeles. Most of my friends I moved out to California with in my 20’s are all back in Atlanta where the film and television industry has been booming for quite sometime. I even went back to Charleston to join the cast of ‘Southern Charm’ as I was having a hard time finding work out west. Gavin was never really in my good graces but I kept my mouth shut as his sister in law is a friend of mine. When he started telling Hollywood if they did business in GA they were supporting a state that refuses a women’s right to abortion (we did not ban them just adjust to when fetal cardiac activity is detected AKA a heartbeat of life) and our general conservative views I was fuming! He lacks any sort of internal reflection or to create policies that would bring the industry back to Hollywood. Instead he chooses to shame those that have thriving created jobs and a thriving business. After Newsom failed leadership Trump has named a task force to restore the Golden Age of Cinema and I hope to be a part of that team. It will be led by Rocky, Sylvester Stallone, Braveheart, Mel Gibson and The Midnight Cowboy, Jon Voight.
Today there is a Petition Launching Ceremony for the Official Recall of Gavin Newsom hosted at Kitson on Robertson Blvd. Another small business almost destroyed by the defunding of the police and other failed policy of social experiments gone wrong. If I was not still frozen in Atlanta I would join you. If anyone attends please send photos happy to share and credit.
