“At what age do you want to be erased?”
Cari asks me this question over a weekend morning Zoom call. My response to this question was a mix of silence and existential dread.
“Right now if I go around and tell people I’m 52, who’s going to cast me? I want to tell people I’m 52! I want to tell people I have kids!
I am speaking to Cari on a busy morning, she will soon call for her young son to change out of his jammies and into clothes he will wear to a friends birthday party later that day. Throughout the call, Cari weaves in and out about her love for her children and how important it was for her to have kids. We chat about aging and about how it is practically impossible to have both the career of your dreams and kids of your dreams when you are a woman, and she feels lucky to have had both. I tell her I am planning out a larger blog article that will feature women over a certain age in the film industry although it has been overwhelming, and not a ton of women over the age of 40 are too quick to share their successes and triumphs even if they have garnered a few awards here and there.
Cari has made the time to speak with me without ever meeting me beforehand. She was eager and willing to discuss aging, imposter syndrome, and feelings of regret for not "starting sooner," and she immediately makes me feel like we are old friends. Speaking of friends, it seems like Cari is a pro at having amazing people around her. She speaks highly of the women in the writing community and tells me that because of the kindness of others, she has been able to learn so much about transforming her ideas into viable scripts. She feels like it has been her own kind of personalized film school. She started out as an actor, and felt the need to change directions when things got stale.
"The thing about being an actor is you have to sit there and wait for an audition. I would sit and wait for the phone to ring and it started to feel really passive. So what do I do? Everyone was like, 'you have to write!'"
At the encouragement of her friends and family, Cari wrote a family sitcom she titled "Bubby," a piece inspired by her grandmother. Through Twitter, people offered to read it and give her feedback. Folks like Guy Crawford gave her notes that were immensely helpful and propelled her forward in her artistic endeavors. Her new found community told her to now go out into the world and make something that others can see. She ended up writing and shooting Demonstration Sport, a comedic short film about a mom named Amy who has aspirations of becoming an Olympic Medal Napper. It is now doing the festival circuit and having viewed the film myself, I have to say it is so cute and so funny, and very Canadian. Oh yes! I forgot to mention, Cari is from Canada! Our neighbor from above! Even though she is from a different country, the feelings around women and aging seem to be the same as it is in the US, for better or worse.
“I think women tend to get more and more invisible as they get older. As an actor, I go out for a lot of mom roles. I have been told, 'don’t tell people your real age!' but I do, because this is what age looks like for me.”
Cari’s honesty and openness to trying new things has allowed her to curate a wide network of friends from all over the world. She is a part of a writer’s group where she is surrounded by overflowing love and is given tips and pointers on how she can improve her scripts. She tells me that sometimes the writers group doesn’t even talk about what they are working on, they just catch up on life and hang out, and that in itself is enough. She waxes back and forth on if they were all much younger, if they would be more competitive with each other or not. I am in my late 20s, and I can attest that I still feel like those around me (regardless of what industry they are in) still have that unsettling competitive edge. I tell her that I was once in an off-off (off, off, off...) Broadway play when I first moved to New York City, and there were 12 girls in the cast. I would try to befriend these girls, maybe catch a drink after rehearsal, but no one was particularly interested in making friends. I think maybe when we are young, we get so caught up in the mindset of making a career for ourselves that we put friendships on the back burner until later. Cari tells me that is such a waste of time, and that young people should be building relationships with each other, not racing each other off the road. She begs me to wonder, “When you’re old and sick, who are you going to have?”
A few months ago, Cari posted a health update on Facebook and over 350 of her friends commented offering love and support. Whatever she needed, they promised they would be there for her. She said that those words of encouragement and prayer meant the world to her, and they would help her get through it. She stressed that all we have is each other, and that is the only thing that truly matters. It made me reflect on my life and my generation's views towards community. I thought about how my age group, however savvy on social media, can tend to lead a more solitary lifestyle. We favor paths where we can do it ourselves or not do it at all. Perhaps with time we will change.
On the future, Cari had to say, "...even if nothing happens, everyone's been so nice. It makes me feel good. People are kind when you give them a chance to be kind. At the end of the day, I just want to have people around me. "
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