It was 15 years ago today

The following reminiscence is brought to you by my upcoming anniversary.  I’ve just finished writing a draft of a memoir, including some drama from 1997, and remembering that it was (for me, in the end) a very good year:

The artists’ residency is nearing the end.  With horses and panoramic views outside my writing studio window, I have almost forgotten the fabric of the daily grind in Los Angeles.  Soon enough the sound of traffic, which I will tell myself is soothing white noise, will greet me each day instead of the whinnying of horses and the buzz of cicadas and crickets.  I remember what day it is because I’ve remained a little too connected to the outside world, checking my email and texts frequently (but less so that I do at home, I hope).  With young children and a husband at home, it’s hard to pretend for very long that my life is anything other than elsewhere.  But my 15-year wedding anniversary is coming up later this week, and with a reminder from the news that yesterday (8/31) was the 15th anniversary of Princess Diana’ death, I am being pulled back into the stream of my life 15 years ago in Los Angeles

On the night that Princess Diana later died, my fiancé was on his way out to a bachelor party that his mostly single male friends had organized.  Because we were in our mid-20s and were Los Angeles transplants, the boys were keen on going full-cliché when it came to the bachelor party.  So they rented a limo, with all the accompanying libations, and proceeded on a tour of Hollywood’s finest (and probably some of the worst) “gentlemen’s clubs” and strip joints.  Cell phones were not common in those days, so I had to wait until the next day to hear all of the grubby details from my fiancé.  But apparently (and I believe him), the other “boys” were a lot more interested in the evenings’ proceedings that he was.

My friend Sarah had made the arrangements for my bachelorette party on the same night.  If this were a movie and you could track the two parties’ movements on a map, you might see that we began in the same part of town, Hollywood, but that the paths diverged after dinner.  The boys stayed in Hollywood, where most of what could be called “gentlemen’s clubs” are located.  The girls began in Hollywood, where we had too many margaritas at a Mexican restaurant in Los Feliz and tried to buy Brad Pitt a drink.  But the cocktail waitress shut us down, saying (rightly) that if she sent him a drink from a bunch of gigging girls, he would stop frequenting their establishment.  (This was so long ago that it was actually in the immediate post-Gwyneth, pre-Jennifer period!  He was technically available!)  We soon headed to West Hollywood, where the men who actually enjoy dancing are.

When the news broke that Princess Diana had died, we were in the midst of a thumping gay club in West Hollywood.  Anyone out in LA that night, indeed anywhere with a television, knew that she was in grave condition and not expected to live after her horrible car accident.  The music stopped, and the DJ announced her death.  All of us, the sweaty mass of gay men and the gussied-up girls who surround them, plus my mother – singular in the club in her conservative dress and her shock at the sexually explicit videos on the ubiquitous TVs, paused for a moment of silence.  Then, as if to honor the fallen princess, we all resumed dancing again.  If anything the dancing became more primal and intense to pay tribute to her glamorous memory, the beautiful girl bound by duty in a loveless marriage.

Later that week Mother Teresa would die, and many upstanding people would rightly complain that Diana’s death was overshadowing the loss of an authentically saintly woman.  The mature, right-thinking part of me agreed.  But it was the story of the luckless princess that stayed with me as, one week later, I wore my own tiara and married for love.