Slipstream

An introduction to my West Wing keepsakes

My boys aren't ready at 13 and 15 to watch The West Wing but can watch every episode of Squid Games or Beef or Better Call Saul. (I could go on.) “Why?!!” I would ask them.

“Because we want to watch it when we can really appreciate it,” my older son would say. But I knew the truth. It looked boring to them. There was no blood, no zombies, no machine gun fire, or covert operations. And their mom was in it, which makes it inherently uninteresting and a little bit weird. It was the same weird my sisters and I used to feel when my dad talked about his first wife, Maryanne. Like, Eewww, you had no life before us. Keep it to yourself, please.

And the truth is, I have not watched the show since the days when our producers would screen the episodes, every Wednesday before the evening it aired. We would sit with our chicken and angel hair pasta on our laps, dressed as the characters we were watching ourselves play. I always hated seeing myself. I would walk away, back to filming, appalled by my freakishly large face, by my flat acting, by how absolute shit I was. One evening, I ended up sandwiched between Warren Beatty and Annette Bening at Aaron Sorkin's house for the kick-off party for Season 3. I sat down with my food on an empty bench when the famous couple walked up. I realized, oh my god, I was in their seat. They said hello and lowered themselves, one on each side of me, so charismatic, so stunning, and obviously in love. (He rubbed her foot, her leg across my lap. I shit you not.) As we watched the show together, my enormous strange face across the giant TV, I asked them if they were able to watch themselves. She had no problem, she told me, of course, she was a beautiful genius, and neither did he- in theory. The only thing that troubled him lately, he confessed, was he didn’t like watching “the DNA break down.” He didn't like to see himself getting old.

I would occasionally get a peak on Thanksgiving Day when the show was aired as a marathon, and my dad would watch several in a row, his West Wing cap perched on his head. I would pass the TV with a stack of my mom’s good plates when I would see myself walking through the bullpen, chasing Brad. I would hover for a minute and marvel at how stinking gorgeous I was. I would stand, fascinated by what would happen, by what Donna might say next, as if watching strangers. I thought damn this show is good. What a bunch of lucky ducks.

So I'm going to watch it again. Maybe I'll drag my kids into it and offer them extra screen time if they sit with me. Or maybe I'll go it alone, crying in the dark, awed by my own DNA, when it was pulsing, so showy and full of itself. And then I'll write about it. For you, the West Wing lovers, the Donnas out there; the people who are watching for the first time, and the people who are watching for the 10th. And we’ll see what comes up. I expect I will remember some, the stories, the behind-the-scenes; my memory jolted, shaken loose by Allison’s brilliance or Brad's hilarity. And I expect I’ll feel something about where I am today, and I’ll write about that too.

The show never goes away, and this I have accepted and embraced. It lives in a steady stream, where anyone, at any time, can drop their hands in and feel its cool, renewing waters of excellence and dignity. Sure, it’s not real. Absolutely, we’re seduced into a feeling of hope by Aaron’s brilliance. But that’s ok. Sometimes, we need that. Sometimes, it's nice just to slip in and remember.

Click here to read my next essay about the pilot episode!