Godmothers & Angelghosts

once upon a time a lost soul found a family

The following is a guest post by my kids’ fairy godmother and one of my very best friends, Veronika Shulman. It has been an honor to call Veronika family for many years, most notably the last five I’ve spent re-imagining what “family” looks like. Bringing people into my home has felt like holy work since Hal’s death. Cultivating a safe, loving and open-hearted community within our walls has been extremely healing after many years of conflict.

Beyond that, I believe in the importance of inter-generational relationships. In aunties. In parental figures. Especially for children who grow up in single parent households. And Veronika has been such a gift to all of us — integral in each and every one of my children’s coming of age. She has attended plays and weddings, graduations and family events as my plus one. She has helped me plan parties and chaperoned Disneyland trips with me. She has made my kids dinner, tucked them into bed with stories, danced with them in the kitchen, invited them to her birthday parties…

(ED: last weekend was Fable’s homecoming and Veronika hosted a getting-ready-party at her house which is far closer than our house to F’s school. When I arrived with a carload of teenage girls, Veronika had Fable’s favorite movie playing, Olivia Rodrigo on the aux and milk and cookies waiting. “The best part of our night was getting ready.” Fable told me later. My sentiments exactly.)

Thank you for writing a little bit about your experience being a part of our team, V. (And be sure to subscribe to her substack! It’s as magical as she is.)

***

I grew up an independent spirit, roaming the beautiful, lonely streets of Los Angeles and talking to strangers.

When I was young, I’d look for symbols and signs. I’d wonder if boys I met were secretly my brother. I was concerned with connecting, with everything and everyone. And yet, the world felt faraway. 

Somewhere out there. 

When Revie was about 6, I was tucking her in; she was restless. She whispered, “All I do all day is tell people I love them, and I don’t tell myself that I love myself, and sometimes I don’t even feel like I love myself that much.”

I said, “You don’t have to take care of anyone. You’re young.” The image just came to me. “Imagine you’re a rosebud in a garden,” I continued, “if you were gazing around at the other roses all the time, you’d grow sideways. Keep rooted, get water and sunshine, and stretch up, up, up, tall to the sky. Just focus on yourself; we’ll take care of you.”

I guess it was a word of advice I wish someone, at some point, had passed along to me.

Revie looked over with her constellation of freckles and her thousand year-old eyes and said, “That was really beautiful.” Then, she fell asleep.

Bo and I have our things as well (Just Add Magic, etc.). I tuck her in, and she is like a tiny Simba-esque lion cub. I scratch her back, and she removes sweater because everyone knows that clothed scratches (called “tickles” in this house) are nothing to write home about.

Fable and I pull tarot cards; I give her my sock monkey from teenhood, and she names it Veronika.

Archer hops up onto the kitchen counter to tell me about his crushes. As his legs dangle like spaghetti, he identifies each of them not by name but by the parts they’ve played.

Rebecca has a dream that we open a store together called “Soulmates on San Vicente.” We grow close inventing an imaginary podcast called The Rita Wilson Hour. We talk on the phone so often and I love her weird stories so much that now, when I say, “Oh my God” on the phone to anyone, I sometimes accidentally say, “Oh my God, Rebecca.”

When Hal was dying, he was very particular about who could come by because of germs and the like, but near the end he said to me, “You can come over whenever you want; you’re family.” It was then I made a promise to him in my head.

To be not just around, but attuned.

To know the kids, to really know them.

Rebecca here. I came across this text recently that V sent the week after Hal died. True love.

Not just the headlines like how they all love theater, but the nuanced truth of things, like that Fable’s best friend at LACHSA is Talulah, who is one year older; that Bo like-likes a foreign exchange student in her play; that Revie wears an almost-invisible cheek tint in a color called happy to rehearsal; that Archer’s feelings toward theater of late are closer to ambivalence.

“I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite-
ly
small”

Pablo Neruda

A few days after the evening epiphanic chat, Revie made me a letter-drawing for my house.

On the front it says, Have you ever seen a girl ruling the world? Yes. On the back, it says, Have you ever seen a girl looking at the world? Yes. She said, I imagined you on top of the globe or a mountain just observing everything.

I felt so held.

I felt so seen.

I felt a sense of belonging.

When my dad died in May, I drove to the Goodwill in Marina del Rey looking for some of his belongings that other people in our family had donated without asking me. I scavenged through the racks like an orphaned princess looking for evidence of her glamorous, old-world provenance.

I would have been happy to see even one of my dad’s moth-bitten cashmere sweaters. Instead, I found a sweatshirt. A weathered grey sweatshirt. It did not belong to my dad but it looked great. Atop the front in green the letters told me of its origin. LA’s most prestigious girls’ prep school. Archer.

I gave them $8 and let my Archer sweatshirt rest on my lap as I drove home.

I smile thinking of myself as an Archer girl.

How everything is and isn’t.

How life is a friendship bracelet of stolen treasures, woven together.

with our “V” and “Woolfy” tattoos

Strangers.

Friends.

Family.

Ancestors.

Hands.

Stories.

Happy.

Healthy.

Holy.

A braid.

To close, here is a poem I wrote not very long ago in honor of the kids. It’s called “Ilia wants more aunties.” Imagine it as a children’s book starring a small Esmé Shapiro-style girl with caramel skin & long wavy hair (plus jam on her fingers, naturally).

Ilia Wants More Aunties

Last year for Hannukah my auntie Ilse gave me an earring shaped like an angel’s cheek

Then auntie Italia got me a nutcracker doll; I played with her until New Year’s eve……

If I only had a few more aunties, oh what treasures I’d welcome, what stories I’d weave!

I’d like one auntie to bring me an elaborate omelet & another a little treat.

I’d like an auntie to mend my dresses & rub rose oil on my feet.

I’d like one to water my plants & one right there to chit-chat while I brush my teeth.

One to tell me I have a fever, that I must stay home & out of the heat.

I’d like one auntie to tuck me in for a little nap, another to wake up.

One to clear my empty plates, & another to fill my cup!

Then, we will sip Mayan chocolate in the garden & dance until dusk will come.

It could be the girl in the shop on the street; could be anyone!

She could be writing songs, on the beach or by a starry creek……..

She could be weaving a flower crown, or reading a great book under a tree……

Actually if you are seeing this, might you like to be auntie to me?!