Then Again - Diane Keaton [63]
When we pulled up to basketball camp at the YMCA, Duke reminded me he’s too big for the booster seat, plus he wanted his usual chocolate mint milk tea warm, not hot, so don’t forget the ice cubes, and did I have any Dubble Bubble sugarless gum? As I pulled away, I took one last look at my boy; God, is he beautiful or what? And then, just as I remembered that Carol Kane was going to spend the night, the phone rang. It was my partner Stephanie Heaton. “L’Oreal might want to sponsor the Lifetime screening of Because I Said So on Mother’s Day.” She also reminded me of the speech I hadn’t memorized for the Unique Lives speaking engagement coming up. I started worrying.
At sixty-three, I have a daughter who insists she won’t swim the 400 IM at the COLA swim meet. She won’t. She can’t. She does. Duke cries about how his SO MEAN MOM never lets him do anything he wants. At sixty-three there’s the morning pill ritual: Dexter’s Migravent, for headaches; my miracle Metanx vitamins; our old dog Red’s five different capsules for Cushing’s disease, among other ailments; Duke’s “Biotic,” as he calls his vitamins; and our fat dog Emmie’s shit-eating pills, which after six months still haven’t done the trick. At sixty-three there’s still a lot of pleasure, like cleaning out Emmie’s earwax and still being allowed to stroke Duke’s head in public. The endless struggle to get Dexter to kiss me at least once a week is worth it. The mountain of hugs and kisses makes things way okay. So does the thrill of still being able to give Duke a piggyback ride. The marvel of watching Dexter’s intricate nightly beauty regimen is the best way to say goodbye to the day. Good times.
At sixty-three, I can’t change into comfortable clothes like Mom and watch the world outside my window. I can’t hurry home in retreat from the stress of human contact, as if solitude will bring peace. I know solitude is no one’s friend, and retreat is not an option. But I take comfort in the fact that Mother and I will always be bound together by the need to communicate. In spite of the pain of anonymity, Dorothy realized her most valued dream. She wrote. And while she wrote she wasn’t criticizing her efforts. She wasn’t worried about rejection. She was engaged. She was giving evidence to the experience of being Dorothy Deanne Keaton Hall.
Dad was always telling me to think. Think ahead. Think. Think, Diane. But it was Mom’s struggles, her conflicts, and her love that made whatever ability I have to think possible. She supported choices that created experiences that expanded my life. As a girl, Mom, like me, had vague grandiose aspirations, but, unlike me, no one helped her expand on them; no one could. It was the poverty of the Depression, not the fabulous fifties. It was Dorothy and Beulah. Then it became Dorothy and Diane.
10
THIS ISN’T SOMETIMES,
THIS IS ALWAYS
Jack Hall’s Right Shoe
In the middle of the Godfather III shoot in Rome, I gave Al an ultimatum: Marry me, or at least commit to the possibility. We broke up, got back together, and went on to spend another year implementing our predictable pattern of breakups. Poor Al, he never wanted it. Poor me, I never stopped insisting. Thinking back on my motives makes me wonder why the rewards of reality kept losing out to the lure of fantasy.
When I look back on my failed romances, I invariably return to the memory of Jack and Dorothy dancing on a hill in Ensenada. Mom kept her mouth shut on the subject of marriage. Maybe she was afraid of revealing the dark side. We never discussed