I scan the room to my left, taking in the makeshift wall that has been raised to separate the dressing room from the rest of the studio. From behind it, I can hear the sound of Ellen Pompeo’s laughter on one side of the room and the low calm tones of Viola Davis’s voice on the other. Somewhere in the middle, I know, is Kerry Washington.
I am here with the leading ladies of Thursday night. Ellen, Kerry, Viola and I are doing a photo shoot for Entertainment Weekly. I’m about to become a cover girl for one of the most popular magazines in the country.
Stand on this apple box?
Hell yeah, I will.
If you want me to stand on my head, I will give it a try.
Finally, I spot him. The man I’m searching for. The photographer. James White. He’s huddled off to one side with his team. They are staring at me, conferring in low voices. Heads tilted to one side, examining me, dissecting what they see.
I stand as tall as I can, hoping to make their view more pleasing. I suck in my stomach as much as it will suck; I try to put on a face that looks like some version of confident and fierce. I try to look like a supermodel. Oh, that is not gonna happen. I have to shake my head, amused that I even wanted to try.
But for a split second, I feel like I want to run. I actually consider it. Maybe I will. Maybe I will just turn around and run.
Yes. I can write a chapter about it.
Yes to running.
The thought makes me snort. The snort makes Cathy frown at me.
“Stop it.”
Cathy is a genius makeup artist and right now she’s trying to make sure my eyes look perfect. So when she says “Stop it,” she’s being bossy for a good reason. She’s really saying, “If you laugh, you shake, and if you shake, this long pointy thing I am holding up to your eye will stab you in the eyeball and you will never laugh again.”
I know this because we’ve been working together for a long time now—years. We have a shorthand.
I sigh at her. Nostalgic. Awed.
“Can you believe?”
I mean this. Where we are. What we are doing. The magazine cover. I mean the idea that a year ago, this would have seemed preposterous. Now, it seems fun.
She grins at me. Cathy and my hairstylist Verlyn have had a front-row seat to this journey. During my shakiest early days of the challenge, they cheered me on and reminded me that the Year of Yes was a good idea. They have seen me stripped bare, they have seen me raw. They know every wrinkle, gray hair and flaw. Before every interview, public appearance or photo shoot, my eyes find them and wait for the slight nod of approval that means I look okay, that I am safe to proceed. Along with my stylist Dana, they are my Ride or Die glam team.
Cathy beams at me, glowing. Warm.
“After the week you’ve had?” she says. “Yes, Shonda. I can believe.”
yesyesyes
It has been an uncommon week in an uncommon year. A week of new portraits finding their rightful places on the walls of my brain.
Last Monday, I stood in a recording booth and got to become a statue.
Literally.
The city of Chicago had asked various writers to write pieces that would illuminate artworks around the city. These written pieces were to be recorded as spoken word files, digitally accessible to anyone with a smartphone. The artwork I was assigned was Miró’s The Sun, The Moon and One Star. An ungainly thirty-nine-foot bell-like structure with a fork for a head, the piece stands in Brunswick Plaza. When first installed, it was declared hideous and was mocked, but it has since grown to be beloved and is now known by the affectionate nickname “Miss Chicago.”
I wrote a monologue that gave Miss Chicago a shy, unattractive feminine personality that slowly gains strength and spirit. I was in that booth to record the monologue for the public. I was there to become the voice of Miss Chicago. That moment is frozen in time for me forever, a small but mighty portrait on my wall. As I stood there, alone before the microphone, speaking the words I had written for the statue, I had to pause to steady myself. I was unexpectedly moved at saying out loud, at owning, some of the lines I’d so easily handed to a statue.
“I am different. I am an original. And like everyone else, I am here to take up space in the universe. I do so with pride.”
yesyesyes
On Tuesday, a new painting went up inside this head of mine. I’d found myself once again at the Beverly Hilton Hotel at the TCAs. ABC was closing their presentation to the critics with a TGIT panel. Viola, Kerry, Ellen, the other producers and I took goofy selfies just before stepping onstage. I wore a bright kelly green Oscar de la Renta dress and sat dead center. I can’t tell you how long the panel lasted; I am never sure of the timing on those things. But I can tell you I was chatty. I can tell you it felt more like my living room than a firing squad. Someone asked me who would play me in the movie of my life, a question that still makes me laugh out loud at the horror. At the cocktail party that took place that same evening, journalist after journalist came up to me to ask questions about the shows and then leaned in to say things like:
“You know, this is the first time I have ever seen you smile up there.”
“If I only knew your secret . . .”
“You are just so . . . different this year.”
First. Only. Different.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
yesyesyes
Last Friday, I made my way up the California coast to The Promised Land. Which is the name of Oprah’s home. As if you didn’t know that. That’s like not knowing the White House is called the White House.
I had been invited to The Promised Land to film an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Super Soul Sunday.
I sat with Oprah for the interview. And I survived it.
I did better than survive it.
If you call me up and you ask, “Hey Shonda, what was it like being interviewed by Oprah?”
Good question.
I’m glad you asked.
Get comfortable and I’ll tell you all about it.
BECAUSE I CAN TOTALLY REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL.
I remember the experience. I was mentally present. My soul did not leave my body in preparation for my inevitable death.
I was relaxed. I was comfortable. There were no nerves. The interview was just plain fun.
You heard me.
I had a flat-out, truly, really good time doing that interview.
A nice big painting hung itself on the walls of my brain and it has stayed there.
And it wasn’t just because Oprah was awesome. Oprah is without a doubt, the best talk show host on the planet and incredibly smart, insightful and kind. And she was awesome. But we have established that she has always been awesome and still, before the Year of Yes, the old Shonda would have suffered some kind of nuclear panic attack, resulting in total amnesia.
Oprah will always be amazing in this scenario.
The difference was me.
I had no armor on. I had nothing to hide. I was worried about nothing.
I was . . . fearless.
And so we had a conversation. We had a chat. We talked.
What had I always been so afraid of?
What had I been guarding?
What was I so nervous about?
yesyesyes
And now I’m here being photographed for the cover of EW.
Another painting for the walls.
“I think it’s time,” Cathy tells me as she removes the tissues stuffed in the neck of my evening gown and backs away.
And suddenly James is standing in front of me. He’s got a camera slung over his shoulder and I can see two or three more cameras on a cart waiting to be used.
James has a friendly, open face. I like him immediately. He reaches out, takes my hands in his and looks at me. I let my body relax, let my eyes focus on his. I have learned enough about being photographed to know that I need to be here in this room with James at this moment. Nowhere else.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
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br /> I take a deep breath.
Am I ready?
Am I?
I take another deep breath and look at James.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am ready.”
James grins. Squeezes my hand and winks, reassuring.
“Let’s do this,” he says, and heads away to get another camera.
yesyesyes
Days earlier, I tried to explain to Delorse the magnitude of what she had done for me that Thanksgiving morning a year and a half ago. I tried to thank her, I tried to tell her that she changed my life. That she saved my life. While I talked, Delorse stared at me, her head tilted to one side. Waiting politely, but her face indicating how ridiculous she thought I sounded.
“Shonda,” she said when I finally stopped talking, “I didn’t do anything. You did all the work. It was like . . .”
Here Delorse paused. She often takes long pauses that act as epic cliffhangers when you are discussing important topics. She went to my refrigerator and dug around until she found a peach. She washed it. Dried it. I’m not kidding.
“It was like you needed permission,” she said finally. Then she shrugged. “I’m your big sister. I gave you permission. Not a big deal.”
I nodded. I was heading away when she spoke again.
“I’m extremely proud of you,” she said quietly. “You were joyless. All you ever did was sleep. Literally. And metaphorically. You were asleep. I was worried. Life is short. Yours seemed really, really short. And now you have completely transformed. You’re alive. You’re living. Some people never do that.”
And then she put her purse on her shoulder and walked out my kitchen door.
This sister of mine.
yesyesyes
The one thing I have learned is that I don’t know ANYTHING. If someone had told me on that Thanksgiving morning in 2013 that I would be an entirely different person today, I would have laughed in their face. And yet . . . here I am.
One hundred twenty-seven pounds thinner.
Several toxic people lighter.
Closer to my family.
A better mother.
A better friend.
A happier boss.
A stronger leader.
A more creative writer.
A more honest person—both with myself and with everyone else in my life. More adventurous. More open. Braver. And kinder. To others. But also to myself. The cruelty with which I treated myself is no longer tolerated.
The pantry door is open. I am out among the living.
Climbing another mountain.
Looking for another view.
Hanging painting after painting on the walls in there.
yesyesyes
There’s a fan blowing on my face. Beyoncé is blaring out of the speakers in the ceiling. James is photographing me. All his guys are around, all eyes on my every move. They are peering at me, adjusting lights. Adjusting focus. I am too busy dancing it out to be self-conscious.
James gestures and suddenly one of his big guys is by my side. He puts down a bigger apple box. Holds out his hand and guides me as I step onto it. I look to James. He gestures for the volume of the music to be lowered for a moment. Then he directs me into position.
“Step forward. Turn your face, just a bit. Now, I don’t want you to feel stiff or like you can’t enjoy yourself—I love it—but do you feel that warmth on your face? I need you to always feel that.”
I nod.
James points to someone and Beyoncé is back and he is shooting shot after shot after shot and I am dancing. I am Crazy in Love and then I am Drunk in Love and then I Run the World. And as I do, as I dance, I look down on everyone from my spot on top of my little mound of apple boxes. Cathy is out there dancing with me and everyone is smiling and the room is just a wave of energy. I raise my hands, running them through my hair, and turn my face into the warmth of the light.
“I am on my own mountain standing in my own sun,” I think to myself.
James moves in, photographing my face close up just as I burst out laughing at the thought.
And James and the guys around him laugh right back. The camera never stops shooting images. Queen Bey never stops singing.
James grins, glances at the monitor.
“You are beautiful!” he shouts at me.
You are beautiful.
James says it like it’s a foregone conclusion. He shouts it. And so I decide not to disagree with him. I decide to believe him. James is clearly a brilliant man. James knows of what he speaks.
“Yes,” I whisper to myself, “I am beautiful.”
James looks at me.
“Do you have more in you?”
I grin.
“YES.”
Immediately James raises his camera, moving in again, taking photo after photo.
“Keep dancing,” he orders. “You will not believe what I am seeing!”
And so I dance it out. I dance it out on my mountain in my sun as if my life depends on it. Because it does.
And James is wrong about believing. Because when I see the photos later, I absolutely do believe what I am seeing. The woman I see may be new, but I know her well. I like her. I like who she is. I like who she’s becoming.
I love her.
Staring at those photos, I know now that is what my Year of Yes has always been about. Love.
It’s just love, is all.
That little girl with the canned vegetables opens that pantry door just enough to peer through the sliver of door into sunlight. She too sees this beautiful woman bathed in light wearing the red dress with the big smile on her face.
She approves. She loves her too.
Who I was. Who I am.
It’s just love.
I can’t wait to find out who I will be when next Thanksgiving rolls around.
Whoever I’ll be, I will be beautiful.
Because I may be an old liar, but I will be a beautiful old liar.
I will be happy.
I will be worth it.
Worth the Chocolate Factory.
Always a work in progress.
Always dancing.
Always in the sun.
Yes.
Always dancing in the sun.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
(1) The six of us on one of our mother’s flawless Thanksgivings. See that extremely perfect, amazing baby? That’s me. Delorse is the one working the beehive updo. From left to right: James, Delorse, Elnora, Shonda, Tony, Sandie (seated)
(2) A happy childhood in the rainbow multicultural suburbs of the 1970s. This is right before the time I discovered the magic of the pantry. That awesome hot pants–jumpsuit that I’m working? Delorse sewed it.
(3) There’s a book hidden in the back of my underpants in this photo. For real. I’m going to find a place to hide and read as soon as this photo is over.
(4) The glasses. The blouse. The hairdo. Let’s all agree not to talk about my style choices, okay? Oh: there’s a book hidden down the back of my pants in this photo too.
(5) That nerd is me graduating from 8th grade and heading to high school. That nerdy joy you see on my face is academic excitement. Also band geek excitement. I’m planning to rock my oboe in high school!
(6) Sandie, my parents, Delorse and I headed off to the Emmy Awards in 2006. Look closely: see how young everyone looks? A lot of Benjamin Buttoning going on . . .
(7) Delorse and her Thanksgiving turkey!
(8) That was the most fun I could have while worrying about fear-snot. Jimmy Kimmel was incredibly nice.
(9)
(10) That big vase of flowers came from Jimmy after.
(11) Marc Cherry saving me at TCAs.
(12) Chris DiIorio.
(13) My own Dartmouth graduation day in 1991.
(14) The view from that podium is intimidating. But truly, I’ve never had so much fun.
(15)
(16)
(17) Beckett, Emerson and Harper: they make my world spin.
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(18) Jenny McCarthy.
(19) The more I work the larger I get. . . .
(20)
(21)
(22) Every year we have our photo taken at family camp.
(23) Before and after have never been so obvious. Mostly? It’s my smile.
(24) I am here to speak at the Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment event.
(25)
(26) The Mindy Project! And me! That happened! (Ed Weeks, Adam Pally, me and Ike Barinholtz)
(27) Speaking at the HRC gala.
(28) My friends joined me for the HRC gala: my sister Sandie, Donnie White, Scott Brown, me, Matthew Perrye and Gordon James (plus Zola, who’d just rushed home to her babysitter). I have found my tribe.
(29) All those years of marriage and my parents are still MFEO.
(30) The Ride or Dies: Gordon James, Zola Mashariki and Scott Brown on one of our many trips.
(31) Sandra Oh and Kevin McKidd just after Sandra’s final table read.
(32) Sandra Oh and Isaiah Washington rehearse the Chocolate Factory scene.
(33) Sandra Oh, Justin Chambers and me right before Sandra’s final table read.
(34) Cristina hangs on to a slippery fish and tries to regain what she’s lost.
(35) Meredith and Cristina dance it out for the very last time.
Year of Yes Page 21