Viva La Treehouse

When I came of age in The Palisades and people still went to the movies in theaters and wouldn’t dream of watching a film compressed onto an iPhone, I was under an immense amount of financial pressure. It can be a paradoxical situation for a professional screenwriter: you need to keep your wits and your brain about you to produce scripts for sale and yet there is zero to little job security to reach confidently for the American dream of home ownership.

I was blessed in my 20s and early 30s to have an actual career and afforded myself a place to live in a paradise that is now lying in ruins, begging to be built back (For the record, I intend to be an active part of the Palisades 2.0 process). It became increasingly challenging to live and produce content at a high level after the death of my mother, so I reluctantly both got married (moving to a quaint English town called Exeter where my husband took pride in his Grade II listed when his American wife didn’t have a clue what that meant) while leaving behind my oceanside life for the promise of British tranquility.

Sadly, the marriage didn’t provide a sense of tranquility for either party committed to it, ending in drama, accusations, and raised voices. I came to terms that I was really more of an American gal who should be stateside where she belonged and still consider my ex husband a dear friend decades later. From that foray, a challenge was born, but a hard one for me to accept. My problem therein lay in the reality that I had virtually left my career behind, yelled viciously and desperately at my agent and manager for not getting me enough jobs to support myself in the style I had become accustomed by supporting myself as a working screenwriter while longing for a chance to move back to a now somewhat unrecognizable town that was newly populated with people more interested in McMansions and being able to purchase YSL on Swarthmore when I was the polar opposite: a mere scribe who generally looked as though she washed up on shore and went to Neiman Marcus for clothes a world away in Beverly Hills, and that too, only if her Oscar award winning boss had a meeting at table 4, the restaurant at Hotel Bel Air. Casually aptly described how I lived my life and how often I brushed my hair.

Realistically, those who cannot pen nonsense or fiction for shameless yet significant sales are forced to teach it and, don’t get me wrong, I adore my second career as a professor and teacher of Creative Writing, Screenwriting, and Critical Thinking. But, I have always been an independent woman who neither had access to a cushy trust fund (I have two siblings and parents who didn’t overindulge us financially) nor one who took a settlement from her British beau. Left to my own devices and enjoying luxury at a level I could afford myself, I compromised and moved to a master planned community called Irvine where my late mother had family, which afforded me a certain, neutral familiarity. The time away I missed The Palisades and my life there in the most pronounced of ways.

Years passed and my father generously offered me space in his home, but as a middle aged, divorced woman who had never lived with him without my late mother present was a bit much to embrace. At 80, he had retired from his medical practice in Las Vegas to live in his Palisades property and it was nice albeit slightly awkward getting to know him when it was just us and not surrounded by endless family members. I was happy for the opportunity offered on a more part time basis, so I found myself coming up from Irvine more often than not, rebuilding my life with friends in my preferred zip code.

A couple years ago, after careful consideration, I decided to fold up the pop up life I had constructed as though from paper in Irvine for full time back home. I didn’t have to live at the level I once did, I just needed a space to rebuild while building my dream home with my father’s support. To say I visited several rental Palisades properties would be an understatement, all the while my father expressing how unnecessary it was for me to not reside with him. Yeah, not so much…

My last foray was to a triplex two miles away from my parents’ place. Franck, the convivial manager, walked me through the property on the evening of May 16. I remember this vividly because my life changed dramatically on the following day. Franck is French and meticulously kept the property in a fantastic condition. The foliage was gorgeous, the ceilings reminded me of Casa Del Mar, and he shared that he had raised his daughter, Natalie, from childhood in the unit I was considering. I went back and shared all of the compelling details with my father, who was not convinced I needed to waste money. It will be more of an office and a retreat, I countered, for when I needed to work. Who knew I would need it to both live, survive, and thrive. Who knew it didn’t stand a chance when the fires blew in its vulnerable direction?

On May 17, back in Irvine, I both received a call from the owner of the triplex, Zora, that Franck said only the most glowing things about me and that should I want the unit, it was mine. This call was followed by one from my brother stating that my father had contracted COVID and so shaky on his feet had fallen in the bathtub, rendering him vulnerable in his inability to walk. From being wildly independent, my 84 year old father was facing his new reality: a future of caregivers, occupational therapists, nurses, and regular stints at St. John’s. And suddenly, Irvine was not tenable for me.

Weeks later, I moved from a large house in Orange County to a small but darling space on the famed Sunset Boulevard. I joked with Franck that I was so reminded of Shutters at the beach in my new flat that the only thing missing was room service. My friends came over regularly where we laughed raucously when I wasn’t expected bedside at my father’s. As though living in the trees and relieved not to have a mortgage and an HOA payment, I christened my gorgeous space, “The Treehouse”.

The memories made there were beyond. Ellie and Edward came weekly for their screenwriting lessons. Gia sat in the front garden and left pieces from her Tesla there when she anticipated multiple passengers. Mookie the dog had his own water bowl at my place. Nicole and I marveled about how we had found each other through another Palisadian with multiple personalities or else how did we know her by two different names? Old friends like Mindy and Annette thought it charming, even though they had known me when I still had my far more glamorous Palisades digs. Erica visited often, Alex shook my faith in love through his naked truths, and Phil, the delightful president and fellow board member of Theater Palisades not only embodied my script beautifully at a table reading alongside the brilliant Hahnah, Dario, and Laura, but he asked after my “pied a terre” with such profound sincerity when the fires swallowed the town and my magical retreat with it. He was genuinely sad to hear that it was gone…

There was a painting at the front door constructed out of tree branches that was perfectly suited to my intent for the space. The last time I hosted, my darling friend, Lisa, complimented everything from the napkins to the decor to the zen vibes, gifting me with a symbolic candle for strength, which we lit as we mapped out the future of our perfectly envisioned for philanthropy production company.

To say that I miss my treehouse would be an understatement. Although my time there was brief, my memories are ones I will carry with me for a lifetime. Within The Treehouse, I learned who I was and who I still want to become in that space and beyond. I will forever be grateful for how generously it embraced my dazzling dreams, not to mention those of my friends…