No One Like Nora

The TV was background noise as I was reading the Style section of the Washington Post and I swear I heard, “Nora Ephron has died.”  I was stunned....complete shock.
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!  It just can’t be true.

Of course, Nora didn’t know me from Adam but, she was my heroine.  If you’ve read her, you know what I mean.  There is no one on this planet who can take life’s tragedies and absurdities and turn them into complete hilarity!

She was fortunate enough to be born to parents who were writers.  Her mother told her early on to take notes. “Observe your own life, you never know when you can use the material.”  What a sage piece of advice that was.

My first encounter with Nora was her best seller, Heartburn.  OMG!!!  This book gives the world the gory details of her marriage to Carl Bernstein, the famous Watergate reporter and now the infamous philanderer.  Fool that he was.  In case you haven’t read it, it’s basically the evolution and subsequent collapse of a marriage between two very talented and intense artists.  She leaves her life in New York to set up housekeeping in Washington, D.C.  The book is sprinkled with divine recipes from her dinner parties.

The marriage implodes when she discovers his ongoing affair with the British Ambassador’s wife, who she describes as a “giraffe with big feet.”  Does it matter that Nora was seven months pregnant with their second child???  Yep, she outed him and turned it into a bestseller and movie.  And, she got her life back in New York and a new husband who adored her, Nick Pileggi, the fabulous crime writer.

On a side note, Peter Jay, the British Ambassador, went on to getting the family's nanny preggers; thus, ending the marriage and his diplomatic career after 25 years.  Margaret, the cohort, went on to become the Leader of the House of Lords, retiring from that position in 2001.  She is now Baroness Jay of Paddington.  Ahhh...those Brits!

But, that was the 70s when it was all about Make Love, Not War....now in DC, it's simply Make War!!

The young Nora was a magazine writer, writing for Cosmo and Esquire.  Who could forget her 1975 essay, “A Few Words About Breasts,” where she lamented having small ones in a world that adores big ones? Her friends told her not to worry about it.  It’s more important to be witty and brilliant.  She decided they were full of shit.

Then, she entered the film world as a screenwriter, director and producer.  What a powerhouse!  I got teary in “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail.”  “When Harry Met Sally” was Nora on top.  Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm scene was filmed at Katz’s Deli in New York, one of Nora’s haunts.  To this day, customers come in and try to reenact that scene receiving either a standing ovation or a chorus of boos.

But, more than her movies, I loved her collections of essays on aging, I Hate My Neck and I Remember Nothing.  Every woman over 40 should read them.  Books that make me laugh out loud are all too rare.  Nora’s observations were spot-on hilarious!  God, she made it possible to laugh at growing old!  Oh, how I’ll miss her.

There are Nora-isms....maxims about life that only she could nail.

“Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I’ll show you a real asshole.”

“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog around so someone’s happy to see you.”

“In my sex fantasy, nobody loves me for my mind.”

She even wrote about wishes for her funeral, “I want everyone to be basket cases.”

Nope....not a dry eye.