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Hometown

Venice Beach, CA

Joie de VIVre

Travel, new experiences, quiet snowy nights with my husband at the mountain cabin, sloppy-kisses to my baby daughter's belly, working with writers to develop television shows, meeting new people, long talks with friends over good wine.

VIV Moment

One of my first real eye-opening travel experiences was in Nicaragua, several years ago, during a civil war. All the basics that we takeforgranted — food, shelter, health care, education — were all incredibly hard to come by.

I was traveling with an aid group and a couple of us wandered into the barrio on the outskirts of Managua, where the poverty was overwhelming. Families lived in 7×7 shacks, literally made of anything they could gather — old wood, corrugated metal, plastic, newspaper, with dirt floors and virtually no furniture.

I came upon one that housed three generations of a family — a grandmother and her daughter, a mother of two very small children. They invited me in, asking nothing of me but a moment of my time.

The mother was proud of her two children and the grandmother that much more of her daughter. They seemed incredibly happy, as they smiled perhaps the most genuine smiles I may have ever seen. The conditions in which they lived were devastating, and yet they continued to find happiness within.

I learned so many things from those women that day; that family continues to resonate for me. I have a daughter now and, perhaps, can appreciate why they could smile in ways I hadn’t known before.

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