Lights, Camera...Travel!

by Lonely Planet

  One September several years later, we took another trip to Grangebellew and it truly felt like we were coming ‘home.’ Once we were back in the house, I couldn’t stop smiling. Perhaps it was my brain freeing itself from the clutter of life and work and stress, but the air felt cleaner, the sky bluer, the fields greener.

  How quickly things can change. The next day, we drove out to Black Rock Beach. The road led right onto the sand. We got out and explored the desolate beach. When we got back into the car, we realized we were stuck. The tires would spin but couldn’t move. We were stuck for several hours. I remember feeling like it was the worst possible luck we could ever have. At long last, with the help of a local neighbor, we pushed the car until it finally gained traction again.

  The next morning, Don and I decided to take a road trip to Galway. The trip from the east coast to the west would take five or six hours, but we looked forward to driving across the sunny countryside to get there. Around lunchtime, we were passing through the charming township of Cloverhill about six miles from Cavan. Don didn’t want to stop. Always the pragmatist about travel, he wanted to eat in the car on the way so we’d make good time to Galway. I’m far more romantic about food abroad: ‘I didn’t come all this way to eat drive-thru at Burger King!’ I scouted the oldest, quaintest looking pub and settled on Olde Post Inn (‘They have fig tart!’).

  We walked along the lunch buffet, piling various kinds of meat, potato and ‘veg’ on our plates. I glanced up at the television over the bar and noticed a news story about New York City. I looked back down at the peas, carrots and corn in mayonnaise (labeled ‘salad’) then back up at the television, refocusing my eyes. Unsure of what I had just seen, I pulled Don with me to get a closer look.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked. Now everyone in the pub was rushing to look. It was confusing. Had a private plane flown into the World Trade Center towers? At first we thought – as did the newscasters – that it had been some kind of freak accident. Until it happened. Right before our very eyes. We witnessed the second plane fly right into the tower. It was unfathomable. Were we witnessing the beginning of the end of the world? We were on an island so far away – and it was happening across an ocean, on another island, in the city where I was born. I wanted to drop everything and run – the way one does when someone they love is in trouble. Oh how I now wished we’d merely been cursed with the bad luck of pushing our car out of the sand at Black Rock.

  Don and I put our plates back down on the table. It was time to go home. But where was home? We raced back to our car, in silence, and drove back to Grangebellew. I tried to call my parents in Brooklyn, but all phone lines to the US were busy. All flights to the US were cancelled. There was no going home.

  It was painful to be so far away at a time when our nation was so, well, sick.

  I’d always believed the old expression ‘Home is where the heart is.’ But our hearts were definitely back in the United States, where our families, our friends, our colleagues and our patriotism resided. We were shocked at how the news commentary wasn’t as pro-America and pro-Israel as the news to which we’d grown accustomed back at home. It surprised us – and made us even more homesick.

  There was a moment of silence planned for the Friday of that week. Everyone pulled off the road. It was touching, but oddly only made me feel more alone. We stopped for lunch in a pub and found ourselves crying at the news reports. A sweet Irish couple came up to us and sympathized ‘with our trouble’ – the Irish euphemism for a death in the family. Yes. That’s exactly what this was. Beyond the literal loss of life, there had been a death – of something far bigger, more profound.

  It’s ten years later now, and Don and I have two children who have never traveled with us to our house in Ireland. It’s time. I guess, whether you’re talking about a country or oneself, there’s a lot to be said for giving the heart time to heal. Just as the cranes continue to rebuild on Ground Zero, the memory of experiencing that national tragedy from so far away has started to fade. As I plan a trip to Ireland for this coming September – the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy – I feel an old, familiar longing for that Irish landscape, the warmth of the people, the smell of our farmhouse. Yes, I feel an almost giddy anticipation about bringing my kids ‘home.’

  Well, no. Maybe ‘home’ is not the best way to describe it. I don’t think I believe any more that ‘home is where the heart is.’ I think I’ve come to feel that home is – just home. And when we travel we are tourists, even to our little farmhouse in Ireland. And that’s okay.

  Jenifer

  JACE ALEXANDER

  Jace Alexander is a film, TV and theater director and producer. Among his credits, he directed the pilots for Burn Notice, Royal Pains and Warehouse 13, where he also served as co-executive producer. He has directed several other pilots, and over 100 episodes of primetime TV. Jace is the co-founder of the Naked Angels theater company. He lives in Dobbs Ferry, NY, with his wife, the actress Maddie Corman, and their three children: Isabelle (12), Mac and Finn (both 7).

  In the summer of 1992 my best friend Jenifer and I drove across the country, from New York City to Los Angeles. I was heading to film school after an alternate lifetime of being an actor. She was along for the ride, never having seen any other part of the country. On day seven, I accidentally cut off an eighteen-wheeler. When I pulled over to apologize, the trucker, a mullet-haired dictionary definition of a redneck, threatened me with a knife, tried to smash my rapidly closing window, and then chased us, in our boxy Ryder rent-a-truck, for thirty miles across Wyoming.

  If Jenifer already felt that anyone from the ‘fly over’ zone was a potential Jew-hater and killer, well, this cemented that theory. We fought about this all the way to Cody, my eyes pinned, no lights, a dark hundred-mile stretch with a Frogger-like bevy of creatures dashing in front of the speeding yellow truck.

  ‘People and things, just because they’re different, aren’t all bad!’ I screamed, sounding like a Public Service Ad.

  ‘They hate us! I wanna go home!’ she shrieked back.

  I just couldn’t understand that kind of fear. Our entire life was ahead of us, like (pardon the easy metaphor) that long stretch of road. ‘We’ll be fine,’ I told her, but I was really telling myself. Of course, I knew, there was plenty to be scared of. The trick is, keep both hands on the wheel.

  In the late winter of 1997, I was a 33-year-old New Yorker whose directing career was just starting to take off. Coming out of the American Film Institute in 1993, I was lucky enough to start directing on Law & Order. This led to other TV shows, and by ’97 I had steady work in episodic TV. That same year, my aforementioned best friend, Jenifer Estess, was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), known more commonly as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

  Jenifer and I had been close since our freshman year at New York University, but had gotten closer in the nascent years of our theater company, Naked Angels. She was my confidante, my motivator, my right hand. She was my best friend.

  I could not, would not accept the prognosis that had been given her: that almost all ALS patients die within five years of diagnosis. I promised her that she’d be different, that together we’d beat it, defy the odds. But over the next two years, she got sicker. The disease started to affect her mobility, and then, her breathing. By late 2000 she was on a full-time ventilator and bedridden. I felt useless and guilty. I was there for her in every way she asked me to be, but I could only watch, helpless, as she began to be attacked from within.

  Her sisters Valerie and Meredith, along with her friend and roommate, Julianne, launched an all-out war and formed Project ALS. The organization raised millions and taxed leading scientists to find a cure for the insidious motor neuron disease. At the same time, the Estess sisters decided that a movie should be made that would tell Jenifer’s story, and would also help raise awareness about the disease and the work of Project ALS.

  Even though by early 2001 I had become a successful TV director, my lack of film cred
its kept me, initially, from getting the opportunity to direct Jenifer’s film. But I fought hard, took meeting after meeting and, with Jenifer’s persistent nudging, CBS gave me the job.

  Of course, for me, it wasn’t a job. It was a mission. I had to give Jenifer, while she was still alive, a film she could be proud of, a film that told her story the way she wanted it to be told.

  We went into production in the spring of 2001. Then they dropped the bomb on us: we were shooting in Toronto. Toronto?! What the fuck?! Jenifer had spent her life in New York City. She was the consummate New Yorker; she couldn’t really cook or drive, and anyone who hailed from anywhere outside the Tri-State area was considered ‘foreign’ and potentially dangerous. And now we had to deal with an entire country of them.

  No offense to those nice Canadians, but trolley cars and ‘Sorry’ every other word and ‘oot and aboot’ (out and about) just ain’t New York City. Of course our prejudices could be assuaged, but this did present some genuine challenges. How could I fake the look of what is arguably the most famous city in the world? How could I get the cast I wanted?

  We were told that our cast could contain only five Americans. The Canadian acting union simply never allowed more than that. Ever. But Jenifer wouldn’t accept that. There were too many actors that she knew and loved and wanted. So we fought. And we won. By the time we started shooting, we had a cast that included sixteen Americans. No-one has ever done this, before or since.

  The cast was unparalleled for a television film. It included Laura San Giacomo (brilliant as Jenifer), Annabella Sciorra and Jane Kaczmarek (as Meredith and Valerie Estess), and a star-studded supporting cast: Edie Falco, Marisa Tomei, Julianna Margulies, Rob Morrow, Fisher Stevens, Camryn Manheim, Vincent Spano and Scott Wolf. My wife, Maddie Corman, played Julianne, and my mother, Jane Alexander, played Jenifer’s mother.

  On my first day, I shot a couple of scenes on Queen Street. It seemed like a good idea, as it had the life and bustling nature of a New York City street. However, I took a lot of flak for featuring the occasional trolley-car cable. These days it’s an easy CGI paint-out, but back then it was a bigger deal. The irony of being told my film didn’t look ‘New York-y’ enough by the very execs who had forced me to shoot the project in Canada was … Well, network executives, I was to learn, are not big on irony.

  Generally, there are some incredibly talented crew folk up in Toronto. However, the pool is small and if it’s a busy time, it gets even smaller. For my first Toronto shoot (I would later wind up shooting two pilots up there that were both picked up for series), I was handed a mix of the talented and … the not so much. But for someone used to the pace and hustle of New York crews, I was a bit flummoxed. As Jane Kaczmarek quipped, ‘Those Canadians, ya know, they really go for the bronze …’ Of course, she was only kidding. But, if my first assistant director said ‘Sorry’ one more time, when there was absolutely nothing to be sorry for, I was gonna deck him.

  Once I got over the initial anger and bitterness, however, I discovered that Toronto is an amazing town. It’s got great restaurants and great museums. It’s got a tremendous wealth of locations. It’s got Lake Ontario with its many miles, um, kilometers, of shore front. And people really are a lot more polite.

  It was a dream job, and I felt like there was no other human besides me who could have directed her story. I put every ounce of my being into making sure that it was everything Jen had hoped for. I’ve never worked that hard on anything else in my life. It was my gift to her, just as the opportunity to helm it was her gift to me. But the shoot was far from easy. We had very little money or time, and I had constant fights with the studio. I was young, and yes, it was my first film. But I knew exactly what I wanted, and I knew how to get great performances and tell the story Jen wanted to tell.

  I just had to get the execs from the studio off my back. One day, after an exec I’ll refer to as ‘Dragon Lady’ insisted that I consult her before checking the gate and moving on in any given shot, I made a calculated move; I brought her into an adjoining room within earshot of the cast and crew and exploded. I raged at Dragon Lady to ‘Get the fuck off my back’ and let me make my film. I screamed and cursed and threw a chair, making as much of a noisy display as possible. Dragon Lady left me alone after that. Until editing began. But, that’s another story.

  The end of this one is: Jenifer died two years after the film aired. I couldn’t save her. None of us could. But she lives on, in so many ways; Project ALS continues to raise millions, and she is remembered constantly by the many, many people who loved her and her luminous spirit.

  And though I choose to remember Jenifer as the young, vibrant force of life who bounded down Upper West Side streets arm in arm with me night after night, there is another lasting image: at the end of the film, which was simply titled Jenifer, the camera pans from a television screen that has just played the last scene of the very same film. It continues to pan across the room and settles on Jenifer, flanked by her sisters, watching the final frames of her own life story.

  We shot that one in her New York City apartment. The view looked down on Seventh Ave, and St Vincent’s Hospital, where, only weeks later, there would be hundreds of signs and memorials posted by the loved ones of those lost on 9/11. But today it was perfect New York, crisp and sunny and hopeful. The camera lingers, just for a moment, on her face. And even through Jenifer’s plastic ventilator, you can see her smile.

  Life is a River in India

  BRETT PAESEL

  Brett Paesel is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs, and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom. She has been published in many national publications, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Salon.com. She has also developed television shows for HBO, ABC, Fox, Comedy Central, Lifetime Television, WB Television Network and Nick at Nite. Brett blogs weekly at lastofthebohemians.blogspot.com.

  I was tired of failing. That’s the simple truth and the only reason why I agreed to go river rafting on the Betwa River that afternoon. I’m not physically adventurous by nature. I am physically timid by nature. But I was tired, tired, tired of feeling afraid, anxious and stuck. Which was why my husband, Pat, and I had persisted in taking our two sons to India, on a trip we could no longer afford, in the first place. It helped, of course, that my brother, who was teaching at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, had said that he would pay our expenses once we arrived. A former army ranger, Keir had even offered to take us all on a ten-day backpacking excursion, ending with a stay with an adventure tourism organization known as ‘Snow Leopard’ on the outskirts of a city named Orchha. I wasn’t sure what ‘adventure tourism’ was when Keir mentioned it in the planning stage of the trip. Now I knew. It meant camping in tents on the edge of an ancient town, bicycling on battered, butt-busting bikes, and river rafting.

  I could have passed on river rafting – which was my first response. My body had tensed at the mention of it, visions of jagged rocks and white water churning, tossing our inflated boat in the air while our family of four clung to each other, screaming out to an indifferent God for deliverance. But, I later reasoned, would that really be any worse than our last year in Los Angeles? Pat and I had lost several jobs and declared bankruptcy – all while helplessly clinging to each other in the middle of many sleepless nights as if we were on a life raft, miles from any visible shore.

  Another simple truth: the only thing that scared me more than death by drowning was the thought that I would return from my trip to India unchanged, unable to see past what I had previously determined were insurmountable problems. And worse, that having experienced their parents’ ineffective response to adversity, our children would grow up feeling defeated before they even walked out the door to face the world on their own.

  As we climbed down the worn, pinkish steps of Orchha Palace to the launch site that afternoon, I was determined to model bravery and adventurousness to the children. I promised myself that I would not inspire new fears
in my sons by laying bare my own. Our guide, Vinod, and five guides from Snow Leopard readied a large inflatable raft and the accompanying two-man banana boat. The men in the banana boat, called so because it was shaped like a banana, would come to our rescue if needed. Vinod had been our main guide throughout our stay and had a genial air as if everything secretly amused him and he couldn’t wait to tell his wife about it later.

  When we reached the pile of life jackets on shore, I said confidently, ‘Okay, kids, let’s strap these babies on.’

  ‘Babies?’ asked my seven-year-old, Murphy.

  ‘Life jackets,’ I explained. ‘We have to wear these babies in case we fall in the water. Which probably won’t happen because these men are trained experts. But in the event that one of us falls overboard, we need to fasten these babies tight so that we’re nice and safe and don’t drown.’

  ‘Overboard?’ said Spencer, eyes widening.

  ‘Unlikely,’ I said. I turned to Keir. ‘Keir, you’re a former army ranger, wouldn’t you say that falling overboard is extremely unlikely?’

  Keir shrugged, ‘It’s pretty gentle. What would you say, Vinod? Difficulty, one?’

  Vinod gave Spencer a relaxed smile, ‘Difficulty zero.’

  Spencer cocked his head, unconvinced. I could see my precocious ten-year-old assessing the risk-to-safety ratio with the skills he’d just absorbed from his latest math unit. He was about to ask Vinod another question when I quickly interjected, ‘See, kids? Very gentle waters. But just in case, let’s make sure our helmets are secure.’

  ‘I’ve already checked them,’ said Pat. ‘We’re good.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I said and turned back to the kids. ‘That way, if you fall out and slam against a rock, you won’t damage your brain. These guys know what they’re doing.’