Meryl Streep Stole My Life

I was supposed to have Meryl Streep's life. Though about ten years younger than her, I was supposed to be the unconventional beauty who was popular in high school, who had the golden career, who won the Academy Awards, who played the meatiest and most challenging roles, managing to have a happy marriage and be a wonderful mother to my children at the same time.


What exactly went wrong? Let's analyze:
#1: I wasn't a cheerleader in high school like Meryl, nor was I very popular. I was a drama nerd who made it through high school thanks to the joy of doing theater in my high school's excellent drama department, and a few fiercely devoted friends.
#2: I didn't go to Yale Drama School like Meryl. Yet I did go to New York University's Tisch Theater Program. For some reason you get all the great contacts at Yale, but not NYU.
#3: I'm not as pretty as Meryl. She may not be what one thinks of as a typical beauty, but she definitely has a certain unidentifiable appeal. I'm not exactly chopped liver, but I'll admit I don't have that special quality she has.
#4: I'm not as talented as Meryl. God, that's hard to admit! Oh, I think I'm a pretty talented actress, just not as talented as she is, and we all know to make it as an actor you need one of two things, and preferably both: supreme good looks and supreme talent. I obviously don't have enough of either.
#5: Ah, finally something we have in common...a good marriage...I'm quite sure mine is as good as Meryl's, maybe better! And, I think I'm an excellent mother though I had only one child, and she has four. I didn't want four, no thank you.

So here's where the whining really starts: I wanted it all, just like she has. I wanted a spectacular acting career, great looks, Academy Awards AND the wonderful husband and family. However, I've moved on. Oh, I'm not saying I wouldn't take a really good part if offered. I just don't pursue them anymore. Now, I just want a brilliant writing career. And guess what? I don't need good looks for this one. I do need talent; whether I have it or not is up to my readers to decide. Fortunately, the thing I most lacked as an actor - drive - is something I have as a writer. This career is falling into place. There may even be a part for Meryl in the film version of one of my time-travel novels. She's a bit too old for the main character who, of course, is a more beautiful and intelligent version of me, but she could play the best friend in the Regency-themed book, the fiery revolutionary mom in the Antebellum-themed book, or one of the feisty friends in the Italian Renaissance-themed book. Goodness knows she can do the accents!

Why does Ms. Streep stir me up so much? When I really think about it, it's a combination of many things. Her acting thrills me. I've seen her on the New York stage twice and each time she just took my breath away. I can't even name all the movie roles in which she made my mouth fall open in astonishment. How she can so totally morph into another human being is almost beyond comprehension. Then, when I see her on a talk show, which is rare, or accepting an award, which is also rare since she's received something like seventeen Oscar nominations but only won three, I realize she's just a lovely, sweet, down to earth person who adores her family much more than her career, or so it seems. So I suppose if anyone was going to have the life I wanted to have, I'd rather it was Meryl.

Dad Made me a Nerd

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I'm a nerd because of my dad. Not that he tried to make me one; I'm sure he didn't consider himself a nerd at all. But he loved science fiction. He's the reason I was hooked on Star Trek all my life, and so into authors like Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke. When he met my husband-to-be for the first time, their mutual conversation about sci/fi made them fall more in love with each other than I might have been with either one at the time.

On April 27th, 2012, the space shuttle Enterprise made its historic flight on a 747 around New York City in preparation for its final resting place on the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum...and I missed it. Fortunately, I've been to NASA. Twice. The first time was with my dad, the second was last summer during part of my family's odyssey around the western United States to memorialize his life. I freakin' love NASA. We got to see the shuttle up close, and everything involved in making the program function. There is an awesome museum at NASA too, (which you can get to only through an annoying child's play center they recently built), where they have all kinds of paraphernalia from the various U.S. space missions: space suits, journals, freeze-dried food packages, and, coolest of the cool, the actual lunar modules that have been on the moon! I remember my dad being glued to every moon landing, even after many people, including me, I suppose, lost interest in them. Years later though, I was thrilled to death to meet Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon.

My dad's as much a hero, as much a larger-than-life personality as any astronaut. He was an intellectual who never stopped learning - a computer geek into his 80s. He wasn't a scientist, but he was really into science. He loved reading about it and watching shows about it - my husband and my son both share that same kind of enthusiasm. Though I'm not as geeky as them, I'm fascinated with many aspects of the scientific world, especially physics, as of late, since I write about time-travel. I nearly flipped when I found out scientists in Switzerland thought they'd broken though the speed of light, the implications of which translate to eventual time-travel, and made me think that perhaps one day I could journey back in time to Jane Austen's England or pre-Civil War NYC, just like in my books. But alas, looks like the experiment wasn't legit. It's funny that of all things to write about, I'd end up incorporating sci-fi into my books, yet because of my dad's influence, it makes sense.

On this first anniversary of my dad's passing, (May 3rd, 2011) I feel a special sense of national pride in the former space shuttle program, the Enterprise craft, named of course after the Star Trek ship, and all the ventures into space that the U.S. made. I wish we had the budget to keep it going; dad would have loved that. But I think I'll make a special trip to the Intrepid to see the Enterprise once it's installed there. In saluting it, I'll salute my dad and his love for the world of science and space. I know he was proud of this particular nerd-girl.