I was sort of shocked at how saddened I was by Nora Ephron's death. I never read any of her essays, but two of her films imprinted themselves on my psyche. I have long joked that I was indelibly changed by my watching Sleepless in Seattle ad nauseum as a pre-teen. (Mostly that I am an incurable romantic, which might be why I am perennially single. My head is in the clouds and not open to the possibilities around me.) I currently joke that my state of my love life is more akin to Carrie Fisher's character in When Harry Met Sally BEFORE she meets Bruno Kirby's character (the man she marries in the film). I have found myself saying to friends, "He's never going to leave her," not because I'm dating a married man, but because I have been hopeless over someone who is not ever going to give me what I want. I usually follow that statement with, "I have to remember I am not Meg Ryan in this situation. I will NEVER be Meg Ryan."
All of this is to say that I loved Nora Ephron. She gave me shorthand for life and love. Those two films will always mean much to me. I now plan on devouring some of her collections of her early essays, if I can get my hands on them.
Lena Dunham, a new pop culture hero of mine, has an excellent remembrance of Nora Ephron in the New Yorker. Ephron's advice on Dunham's love life is wonderful. "You can't meet someone until you've become what you're becoming."
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