Buon Viaggio, Diane Keaton

I read today that 2025 feels like 2016, another year when it seemed like we heard about the death of a popular culture icon every week. January was brutal, and it continued through most of the year. David Bowie, Gene Wlder, Alan Rickman, John Glenn, Glen Frey, Carrie Fisher, Prince, Harper Lee, The list went on. And on. And on. This year it's been people like Gene Hackman, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Ternece Stamp, Val Kilmer, Michelle Trachtenberg, Ozzy Osbourne, Loni Anderson, Brian Wilsom, Sly Stone, Pope Francis, Jane Goodall, Robert Redford, and now 

Diane Keaton.  

Dr.Kildare, Dennis the Menace, and Hot Lips. 

I stop typing names and others come to mind. It's killing me softly. Yes, Roberta Flack died this year too . . . and David Johansen, Jesse Colin Young, and Bobby Sherman. Marianne Faithful. Peter Yarrow. 

Joan Plowright, Patricia Routledge, Jean Marsh, and David Lynch. I may as well keep going. 

Graham Greene, Jerry Adler, Julian McMahon, Michael Madsen, George Wendt, Ruth Buzzi, Wink Martindale, Hulk Hogan, George Foreman, Tom Robins, David Gergen, Rick Derringer, and Churck Mangione. Doesn't feel so good right about now.

Mick Ralphs . . . did he even know he will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year? Strains of All the Young Dudes and Shooting Star fill the air. Yes, he co-founded both Mott the Hoople and Bad Company. 

Diane Keaton.

That's who I'm really thinking about today. I had one of those "Oh no" moments when I signed in to social media this afternoon and saw the announcement. Couldn't the algorithm have begun with some good news?

And because I mentioned loving her Coastal Grandma style, my feed is now filled with fashion posts that are highlighting just about every way that aesthetic can be expressed. At least the fashion posts are a distraction from the politics-as-usual stories that seem to fill my feed these days.

Remembering a truly fine woman today. She was funny, bright, creative, and brilliant. She was so much more than what 4 words or a feedful of stories can express. As she passes into history, I think about all she brought to her small piece of eternity and give thanks that we knew her just a little bit through the glimpses we catch in her work and in the unguarded moments captured by fortunate photographers and interviewers.

What did I love about her? So many things. But the thing I think I loved the most is the way she embodied the extraordinary quality of Everywoman.

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.