Mary, our Santa Monica Grandma

I have so many memories of being a child and then later a teenager and talking on the phone. The actual house phone. What we refer to nowadays as the landline. The one that had a curly cord attached to it that stretched the length of the kitchen. Or the one that had a rotary dial. Or eventually the cordless behemoth that had a pull-up antenna and sometimes patched itself into the neighbors' line (true story, we were hackers before we'd ever heard the word!). 

But I don't have a lot of memories of talking on the phone to my friends. When I was younger my friends and I talked at school, on the way home from school (walking, the bus, in the back of the Astro minivan every parent seemed to have at one point or another), or when we were actually hanging out at sleepovers or on movie dates. The memories I have of talking on the phone are of spending time with my grandmothers. Both my Grandma Boutell and my Grandma MacDonald, but mostly Grandma Boutell. 

She lived just up the road, sometimes down the road, or a few blocks over depending on what year it was and whether they were at the farm, on Preston Road, in the ground-floor apartment of the tiny high-rise in Howell or in the the cute little house by the hospital. (Grandma and Grandpa Boutell moved A LOT). Yes, we spent a lot of time with both grandmothers, yes they'd pick us up or we'd get dropped off and spend hours, nights or sometimes long weekends with them, but also, we talked on the phone all the time. 

I'd call Grandma Boutell after school and fill her in on the day. She'd tell me stories of work or friends or her soap opera. And it never seemed special or important or particularly note-worthy. But looking back, it was all of those things, because it was a connection. An important one. 

Mary Bremier

I was thinking about these connections the other day as I was thinking about Mary. Our Santa Monica grandma. When we first moved to Los Angeles, Mary lived in a duplex she owned directly across Abbey Place from us. Close enough to us that we could see her in her front window and hear her light blue car when it chugged into the driveway. She was so proud of that duplex. That she'd bought it by herself when it was cheap (by LA standards) and fixed it up over the years. Mary became one of my lifelines in Los Angeles, one of my very first connections. And since she was best friends with Betty next door, our other Los Angeles grandma, Angela and I had two wonderful women looking out for us. 

Mary & I

And look out they did. Bagels on our door after early morning runs to the farmers market, fresh flowers from their gardens when we returned home from trips, check-ins and favors and lunches and shared leftovers and community. Mary was the first person to take me to the LA Symphony downtown. She made us join her passion project, the MidCity Neighborhood Watch, and groomed us to take over because she'd been doing it since the 90s. And we were heartbroken when she decided it was time to cash in on the real estate market's success and sell her duplex and move to an apartment on the west side. 

But we never lost touch. In fact, our visits and communication became more intentional, on both sides. We arranged doctor's appointments and trips to Santa Monica around stopping at her apartment for tea and snacks. We discovered new restaurants on that side of town that she was excited to introduce us to. And she would stop in when she'd get back our way, I was always excited to see that light blue car pull into our driveway. 

So last year, exactly one year ago today, when Mary called us in the evening, the day before Thanksgiving, we gladly turned off the television and talked with her for over an hour. She was in an assisted living facility at this point, still by the water, just a few blocks from her Santa Monica apartment. She'd had some health scares and we'd had many phone calls over the past few years from her hospital bed or her rehab facility. That tends to happen when you're 95 years old. 

Betty, me, Bill, Mary, Jim & Angela - The Abbey Place crew!

Mary & her first published book

But she was a fighter and she always did her rehab and listened to any health guru she could and got herself feeling better and back on her feet. That's just who she was. She was born in 1928, into a large family that didn't make it through the Great Depression unscathed. She lived an amazing life and she was a writer so she wrote all about it. I remember when she first handed me the binder with her memoir manuscript pages in it back on Abbey Place, I couldn't put the book down. What she lived through, what she experienced, and what she did to change her life, to live her life, I can't tell you how much I want everyone to read her story. (You can purchase her book here on Amazon!) She had so many adventures, especially as an older adult, that it was easy to see her as this free spirit. But Mary's spirit was actually broken in two. She'd lost her husband and toddler daughter to a horrific car accident back a million lifetimes ago and that heartache made her the kind of woman who saw people and cared for them. Especially two girls from Michigan who were missing their grandmothers. 

Betty, Angela & Mary (in her Bernie shirt!)

As that call with Mary wrapped up that night in November of last year, she told both Angela and I how much she appreciated our friendship and how much she loved us, how good we'd been to her and how thankful she was for us. We echoed her sentiments right back. It was always in the back of my mind that Mary was only a phone call away, and she'd want to hear all about a new writing project or how school was going (she loved that I was a writer, she'd been writing her whole life after struggling with dyslexia, and had been in the same community college writing class since the early 2000s and she loved that Angela was a teacher as she'd taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for decades). She'd get heated up over politics and I remember being so tickled when she appeared one day in a Bernie tee shirt! And she was always up for a walk. She spent decades walking with Bill and Betty, sharing their lives every single morning. And she was thrilled to be in Santa Monica now where she could walk the bright and busy streets and ocean paths. 

The last picture of Angela, Mary & I

But once we'd hung up the phone Angela turned to me and said it felt like Mary was saying goodbye. 

And she was. One last phone call was her last gift to us. One last chance to hear her beautiful voice (she wanted to learn how to sing and so began taking opera singing classes in her 90s!) and hear her smile across the phone lines. One last chance to hear her say she loved us and we could tell her we loved her back. 

Mary passed away the very next day. But because it was who she was, and even though she was not well, she took the time that night before to reach out to us, to care for us, to tell us she was worried about her sister who lived in a facility nearby, to ask about our families, to remind us she'd gotten to act in a horror film just the year before and it was coming out, in fact she'd gone to the premiere just a short time before. 

Mary is gone but she's not. And that's why it's taken me a year to process her passing and still not fully come to terms with it. She was a lifeline here for me, a person who needed us (mostly to work on her computer and make sure she was locked in tight at night, that that light blue car was parked at home) and a person who I needed. I spent hours sitting in her living room talking about writing with, a person whose voicemails saved on my phone still make me tear up when I scroll past them. 

Mary receiving an award from the city for her Neighborhood Watch work

Mary will never be gone. Just as my grandmothers will never be gone. I have their memories in my heart. And even though the loss of Mary is so fresh that there are moments where I think, "I should call Mary" forgetting she's not on the other end of the phone, I know that she's with me. She encouraged me to take chances, to write out of my comfort zone (her second published book, in 2022, is a book of poetry and you can buy it here) and to keep going. Sometimes I think about how it's time to stow the writing dream far far away. But then I remember Mary. Who didn't publish her first book until after her 90th birthday. And how proud she was to tell her story. And how important that was to her. And I think about how I have so many more stories left to live and to write.

Mary will never be gone. Because she's with me. She's with everyone who ever met her. And now, she's with her daughter and her husband again. She missed them so, it would break her heart anew every single day. And then mine to hear her talk and write about them. (She could not bring herself to put a photo of either of them in her house until she moved to Santa Monica. When I saw she's hung her daughter's picture on the wall by her new bedroom I cried. To know that much pain and to still be such a light and such a force in this world, is something special.) 

Mary will never be gone. She introduced me to new people and new ideas and she loved Angela and I so much. And I am so thankful for that. Without her, and Betty and Bill, our community here in Los Angeles would have been much less loving. I am so thankful for all the time we had with her. And wish we could have one more cup of tea by the ocean or one more phone call. Instead I will hold close every one of those we did have and remember the connection that meant so much, more so than the time. I will hold Mary close, just as she held all of us close. 

Thank you, Mary. For choosing to care for us. For choosing to love us. We will always love you. 

Dad, Mom, Angela, me & Mary

Have it rejected!

I saw a social media post yesterday (I have no idea where, it had to have been on Twitter or Instagram) by a woman who said she goes in search of rejection. That thought was fascinating to me. I've been thinking about it ever since. 

Going out in search of rejection. 

The thought was terrifying to me at first. But in reality, that's what us writers do. We put out our work, time and time again, constantly, hoping against hope, to just get it read. Whether it's by agents or managers or producers or show runners or anyone who can buy a screenplay or help us sell a manuscript or hire us to staff on a television show. 

We go out in search of rejection.

I have been thinking of this a lot lately as I actively go out in search of rejection. I send my first novel out to agents and await the standard (or once in a blue moon, personalized) rejection letter that reminds me there are so many great things about my manuscript that someone else will surely love it. Every time I mark the rejection down on my Excel spreadsheet (that I hate, writers should not ever have to use Excel spreadsheets) I think to myself, one day I will get to throw this away. I will get to never open it again. It just takes that one yes to blot out the hoards of no I've gotten every day since this endeavor started.  

But I want to be honest about rejection and about the heartache and heartbreak my creative career brings me. I make sure to share all my wins (tiny, minuscule and otherwise) on social media and in real life so I need to make sure I'm also sharing the hard stuff. Recently, I posted about my feature-length screenplay The 23-Year One Night Stand making it from the first round of 15,200 entries to the quarterfinals of 5,499 entries in a contest. Then it made the cut when they chose 252 semifinalists. From over 15,000 screenplays down to just under 300. That made me very happy, and just a little bit impressed with myself. 

This is a script that I have worked on since 2016. The script as it reads today, at draft number 30, is almost nothing like it was when I first typed 'The End' over EIGHT YEARS AGO. Do you know how much I've changed in 8 years? How much you've changed? I cannot begin to describe what this script has gone through. I mean just this year I changed the entire title of the script! BUT...some of the core characters and the main idea are still exactly the same as they were when I first opened a Word document and typed "ideas" at the top. 

And the thought that a few people read this script, just this year, and obviously enjoyed it, made me ecstatic. And then some friends and family members read it and told me how funny it was and how different parts made them feel and what they liked and what they wished they could have seen more of and I thought...that is the direct opposite of rejection. 

But...had I never gone out in search of that rejection in the first place, by putting my script out there, no one new would have read my work, heard my story. And that's the whole point. To get my work out there. And that means going out in search of rejection. 

My script did not make it to the finals of the contest. It did not win as I let myself daydream it might. I let myself feel that sadness and disappointment for a few hours last week as I cleaned the house and sung along with Beyoncé. And then I went back to my desk and clicked over to the new novel I'm working on and got busy. Because I've learned I've got nothing to send out in search of rejection if I don't keep my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keys.

So I'll keep writing. I'll keep sending my manuscripts and screenplays out. I'll keep submitting my short film to festivals (for all of the film festivals we've been accepted into, we've been rejected by dozens more! and the rejections to those keep coming in weekly!). And mostly, I'll just keep reminding myself that all of this rejection is paving the way to something unbelievable. That one YES. 

And that search for that one yes keeps me going. Recently, I've been listening to James Patterson's MasterClass and he reminded me to write a bestseller. Because that's what sells. And so I will...write that bestseller. Because anything less is unacceptable. Rejection is important. Rejection is part of the process. And rejection is something to be proud of. In the words of one of my favorite TV writers (and Twitter friend!) Hart Hanson:

Be proud of every rejection because every rejection is a sign that you've done something fantastic that very few people can do which is make something and have it rejected!

 

Thoughts on Lent

Today was my assigned day for the Lenten devotional for Hollywood UMC: 

Genesis 9:8-17

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds….”

 

Growing up it rained a lot where I lived, in Michigan. It rained in every season. Sometimes a cold winter rain, sometimes a warm summer rain, sometimes the rain that seemed to set in and threaten to never end. We had raincoats and umbrellas and we’d put plastic bread wrappers in our boots so they wouldn’t leak. The rain would sometimes turn into ice and the rain would sometimes turn into green grass and tulips. It didn’t matter, we’d go about our business. Rain was a part of every day life. 

 

I now live in Los Angeles and when it rains here, it is an EVENT. People post about it online. Meetings are cancelled. Schools evoke emergency plans. Life is affected in major ways. Rain is extraordinary. But…unlike in Michigan where when the rains end, there’s usually a lot of wet gravel roads and grey days, Los Angeles knows how to shine when the skies clear up. We’re talking white puffy clouds in the blue horizon, shiny fresh pavement, and yes, often rainbows.

 

This passage in Genesis, the very beginning of the story, made me think about those rainbows after the rains in Los Angeles. And about Noah’s hope and his faith. He trusted God enough to do something that many might see as…well…a little bit bananas. He built an ark. And he followed God’s directions. But…that hope and that faith paid off in the form of a covenant, a rainbow. 

So many of us are waiting for those rains to clear, for the waters to subside, just like Noah was. And because we have this reminder from God himself, we know that our hope and our faith will be rewarded. The rainbow will appear. It might be faint, it might be tiny, some days it might even be far off in the distance. But we trust and know that it will appear. We know God keeps his promises. And we hold that belief close when it rains. 

 

Dear Lord – Thank you for such a visual, beautiful, reminder of your covenant. And for reminding us that it is for every single living creature on this earth. 🌈