Happiness. It’s not in every room. It’s not in many hospital rooms, except in the delivery ward.
I’m afraid it won’t be in my mother’s room in the assisted living part of her retirement facility – not tomorrow, Thanksgiving, possibly the first one she’s ever spent without family in her 91 years. But no one could afford the time, the vacation time, the money – and I wouldn’t suffer the trip from SF to Florida – I’ve spent too many holiday times sleeping on the floor of the Dallas Ft. Worth airport. Glad I was so firm about that, glad I risked my sister’s displeasure, turns out this is the busiest Thanksgiving holiday travel time in 20 years.
But where is there happiness? In my house, in whatever room my husband is in. When I first met him, I used to think he was a little stupid because he is always happy. I once told that to a friend who said, “Maybe you make him happy.” Wouldn’t that be nice? That’s nice. When I first met him, the first or second holiday season I saw his happiness full-fledged. In those days, all the small businesses in the film world in SF and some other people he knew from outside of film, held holiday parties – almost all of them on a Friday night a week or two before Christmas. We came out of one of them onto the Embarcadero, it was raining hard, he started dancing around a streetlamp, singing, “Singin’ in the rain, I’m singin’ in the rain…” while I stood laughing, getting soaked. And he’s managed to stay happy, through thick and thin. Through wonderful, strenuous times like making our feature film Thousand Pieces of Gold, 3 months of hard work in the remotes of Montana, through getting snowed in there during a location scout by himself. Days and days in Boseman, he’s a vegan. He finally told me, in a plaintive voice, over the phone, “I have to get out of here” – he had driven, all the roads had been closed, but he found a place to store his car, went to a bigger city and flew out. Was smiling when he arrived, no grudges against me or Montana.