Wednesday, September 14, 2011

'Fire in the Hole'

Last night I couldn't sleep for the third night in a row, thank God for Hulu. For the second time in many months, I watched the documentary on Hubert Selby Jr. It is a great documentary, with plenty of in depth interviews and insight. I love the very last sequence, which shows him near the end of his life, going into a pay laundry mat to do his laundry, the narrator says, "Hubert Selby Jr. did not die a rich man as a writer…" It's actually a beautiful tag on an extraordinary life.

A high school drop out, in a sanitarium for four years after contracting tuberculosis at a very young age where he almost dies several times from having his ribs removed, (that's how they treated tuberculosis then) a junkie for many years after spending much time in the hospital on morphine, Hubert Selby writes 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' and becomes a cult hero, but blows all the money from his novel on heroin. Somehow, he survives, moves to LA and finally gets clean and sober in his forties and writes 'Last Requiem For a Dream', a novel about addiction. A teacher, a gifted and determined writer, and a person with a deep moral compass, an inspiring story for a writer, or for anyone. I loved this documentary.

I'm feeling a little hopeless and depressed today, even though I'm excited about finally directing Chuck's play, 'The Man In The Black Pajamas', (which we are auditioning on Saturday and Monday) I suppose some depression will happen when everything you own burns up in a fire, including the little house that was all you really had. As the days go by, there are so many little things I realize I don't have anymore, and because I was actually 'in the fire', I'm probably having some post traumatic stress. For those of you who don't know what happened, the short version is a propane leak caused my trailer to explode, with me in it. I only got out by kicking out the back windows and falling onto the dog house, (now there's a great metaphor for all of this that I hadn't thought of before). I was in the hospital for a couple of days with cuts, bruises, and some smoke inhalation. To put it bluntly, I was acting pretty crazy in the days leading up to it, and I'm very lucky to get out with my life. You miss little things like 'your wallet', and your comfortable boots. Luckily, my computer and guitar were not in the trailer, still, everything else was. Afterwards, as I was raking through the remains I did find one piece of paper that was only burned on the edges, and I suppose it should be a sign to me—the only thing that survived the fire was my birth certificate and a photo of me when I was a little kid. I'm so appreciative of all the help, clothing, and kindness that the community showed me, but still, you are in someone else's clothes. There have been moments when I have thought that I might be on the brink of madness, but then remember that others' have gone through this, and we are a world with the dire rich and the dire poor, and its official, I have become the latter. I hope I can survive and move through this.

Right now, it’s the uncertainty and the anxiety that I fear the most, as these last five years have been the extremity of highs and lows, all indications that something isn't right, plunging disappointments mixed in with great expectations. It's usually during a catastrophe like this one that I get good news, but the good news is overwhelmed by the despair, and it seems that this time I have really lost some ground. And, it seems, I've lost a few of the key figures in my life I always counted on, who I think are disgusted with me and my continuing spiral.

Immediately after the fire, I seemed to have some sort of epiphany about my life, and of course there were many people who came to comfort me. My eighty-nine year old aunt, for example was amazing in this latest tragedy, and as always my ever vigilant mother, who knows me like know one else. But the last several days I've felt this huge separation from God. Last night, I was sitting out on the porch, and I was thinking about God, and a light went on in a house directly across the street, but I found no comfort in this seemingly very direct momentary message. It's like the signs are all around and I can see them but am having difficulty taking comfort in them. Usually, I would say that for a good part of my life I've been a 'glass half full' kind of a person, but today I'm having trouble even finding a glass. Thankfully, there is my very vigilant dog, Baby, who follows me around like a little nurse, peering deeply into my eyes and giving me the sweetest indications that she is here to comfort. And she has been a great comfort, snuggling up to me in the most needed moments, the pure and unconditional love of a dog, it is truly amazing. When I think back to the fire, I think she was one big reason I was able to get out of there, a momentary flash in my brain of, "Who will take care of Baby?"

I do feel like I have been here before, however, the pain and suffering I've experienced most recently are unlike the others, its as if there is a deep longing for the world to all just go away. As if the constant energy to 'reinvent' myself is waning, as if the constant struggle is getting to me. Don't panic. I'm not suicidal, just depressed. And although I'm willing to take responsibility for some of it, I suppose I'm like we all are at times, asking ourselves, "Why didn't that turn out like it was supposed too?" And then the ever present, "If only this had happened…" I'm honestly filled with regret at this moment, as though "If only I had made this happen!" If I had pushed more, if I had pushed just a little harder on the boulder." Several people now have finally reproached me on my choice to quit my job teaching, (ten years) and venture out to ply my trade as a writer and entertainer. I lost any inkling of security, and have been in a free fall ever since with short moments of grandiosity and success. But, I did not want to live the rest of my life with the regret of not making that decision. I was burned out teaching, people, okay? I couldn't do it like you would. My flame burns hard and fast, and it burned that way for the ten years I taught, and believe me, I love to teach, but it too was becoming tragic.

A week after the fire, I got an email from someone who says they will put up the money to do 'Blue Baby, A Memoir', in Los Angeles, which oddly, is about another series of tragic events in my life. For the last three years, however, I've heard all of this before, as if I'm destined to go through this period of glaring disappointment and pain. Will it happen? I don't know. I only know that I'm trying so hard that perhaps I just need to 'let it go' and not worry about it. I've become a pretty grand letter writer, (I get that from my mother who once wrote me a twenty-one page single spaced letter) I've learned that with out communicating that you have these things, plays, pieces of art, etc., that nothing at all will happen with any of it while you are alive if you don't communicate it to someone in a particular way. I keep working the channels, and probably always will until I drop. It is hard work. It's hard to hold the rhetoric of the letter down so it doesn't sound like a scream coming from a deep hole in the earth.

Oh, God, I've written a 'poor me' missive, and its probably not a good time to write publicly about any of this, however, I AM holding onto the words of Hubert Selby Jr. who made a decision he says to, "Say yes to life". I am saying 'yes' to life, but I'm bitching about it every step of the way. Hubert Selby was a writer who was able to honestly let out the scream that he had within him, a scream that we all have, and do it in stories and books. I know I'll recover from this, but its not going to be easy, and its not going to be fast. I've been through this before, it’s a repetitive cycle of behavior that I can only correct for periods of time. Sometimes, however, for long periods, I'll hope for that, on a daily basis and see where that gets me.

I think I've read far to many biographies on my heroes, but I think that they were my heroes because I identified with them. But, I admit, they were the mad ones, the ones who struggled all of their lives. I just keep hoping for that third act, the one of resolution that I keep talking about, the one where the conflicts in acts one and two finally get some real answers. In the meantime, the moments are passing very slowly, the paradox however, is the increasing anxiety that accompanies those moments, and all the while, my little dog keeps looking at me, deeply and lovingly, today I'll hang onto this, and keep writing.

9 comments:

Gerry said...

I quickly read this after I came home from making another video I decided I just had to make. I am waiting for it to unload now, and I am always uplifted if someone decides to write something I can connect to as a writer. I, too, had to give up teaching before I ever even taught, a decision that was deplored by many, but I no longer had the stamina for it and I don't think you did either. If some kind of disability ensues, you may not be able to maintain a job that provides the secure life, so you have to go out there and live on a piecemeal income poor but still alive. I am just glad you are still alive. I have noticed that children are very often so affected by what has happened to their parents they will end up repeating their patterns in part as though programmed. If you raise a kid in poverty without a father, he is going to be different than one raised by two parents with jobs and security. That is all there is to it. I needed kids to survive, but I thought I had the ability to think and write to offer the world. And oddly, disability freed up the time for me to write. For long bouts of CF that is all I could do, when I could not work. So my kids are going to be able to tell the world what is is like to be raised without healthy parents, disabled ones. That is another world. But I have learned there are a lot of disabled people on whom fortune has frowned and who must struggle to survive poverty and limited options. You have fought hard to try to maintain normalcy, but with such parents, that is probably not going to be possible for the full course. So it is how you accept your fate and try even to take advantage of it that will make the difference. You are now being given a great opportunity to survive a personal disaster and tell the world what that is like, to once again, come back, rise literally from the ashes like another Phoenix. But writers thrive on the unexpected event however traumatic, the challenge and I think you can, too.

Bohemian Cowboy said...

I loved this response. It lifted me, but I admit, its a little dramatic going through these crises to get my therapy. I think it rare for a mother to be as insightful as you are about your life and how it pertains to mine. No, I didn't have a normal life, and so I only know intellectually what normal even is. However, I wouldn't have had such a rich and interesting life had I had a normal one, having said that, I sometimes long for that deep emotional place of normalcy, but maybe we all do in some way. And its true, I think that a cycle between parents and children is very hard to break--and that also includes grandparents. I realize these patterns in me as a product of my 'growing up', and because I was the most 'like you', I can see the 'writing on the wall', however, I'm going to choose to keep moving forward, for me though, I'm not ready to accept disability for my time to write. I recognize that I have some real issues, 'that nasty King thing', you know, the one that creates fire and brimstone? Its a great comfort for me to know however, the history of what I struggle with. Like you, I am a student of family history, and that is such a paradox. Its as though the whole damn family burned up in a fire all wearing very fine cowboy boots, and all had a desire to work like the devil. I'll rise from these ashes too, but this one won't be as easy as the other times, because I'm tired...

Bohemian Cowboy said...

(more from last comment) I seem to have inherited that 'King disease' with a vengeance, and even though I'm so very aware of it, it's an unbelievable thing to try and quell. It's so much like I imagine madness, 'hitting my head on the wall because it feels good when I stop'. That's it right there. And an unbearable nostalgic pain of the Kings that I seem to have collectively, as though I have no choice but to continue much of the tragedy. Its remarkable in our family how many of my generation who escaped that awful fate, but I seem to have gotten all of those genes. The struggle is a daily one, and I don't expect to ever get completely well, but as I said in my post, I can find ways to put it somewhere in my subconscious where it's not running my life. Thanks, for the discussion.

vooman's voice said...

I was happy to see you have a blog up again. It seems writing in this family is a much needed outlet. I've tried to call you a couple of times, but got a busy signal and left a couple of messages. The very day this all happened I read about this foundation of writers up here somewhere. The mother of her son, a writer, had started this group after her son's untimly death to help other writers who experienced these highs and lows. I even cut it out of the paper. Carissa said I shouldn't send it right then.
I have been working on my book Mad Ouija all summer and hit some pretty deep lows myself. It's going over extremes of my own behavior, but telling it as honestly as it can be told. There is a release and self therpy in the writing. Also, it was next day that I read this long blog about this guy who went to South America to help a friend. The priest had actally told authorities he was a master of something or other and took him aside and told him not to tell them any different,as they needed him so badly for the kids. He was completely inexperienced and he didn't even know the language,but he stayed and accomplished so much, for the kids and for himself.
I was thinking then about your (years ago) mission (of the mind) to go to Mexico. As I was writing my own crazyiness, I thought it was a message loud and clear connected with everything. Why would I read it this day??
I have ups and downs with my belief in God, especially when he instructs the Jews to go into another countries homeland, take over and kill all the men, women and children. Was that God? I was have a argument with God just the other night about foreskins and little girls being forced to have their parts cut all under the heading of God and goodness. What is this?? God making every other nation mad at the Jews by calling them a chosen people. What is that? That night I dreamed of a basket was going up to heaven with very little in it. (mine, I think.)I usually dream of your mother with a basket of eggs. (her plays and books) I moved up and it all seemed like a big, big, area of outer darkness. I lay awake saying to myself, "Outer Darkness? What is this outer darkness?" The next day your mother had sent me that article about the man who had been brought back to life by the doctors prayers. The man discribed, when asked, where he had been...that it was all black, as...outer darkness. This seemed to be an answer to my questioning God, if there is a God, etc. Like this was an action, right now, from God. Or, was I only picking up what your Mom was putting on her FB?
I know you are going to have a hard time getting over the loss of all of this, but it seems the threads of God...ness is woven through all of it. I think it will bring some good changes. You got to hold the faith.
I am still fixing mistakes, after Francis edited my book. My messages from the spiritualist pastor, Sunday was. What is this? You keep going over and over the same thing. I don't know how she could have discribed editing and fixing any better. Keep writing. Keep directing. Keep being Raymond. I love you, Aunt Linda.

Bohemian Cowboy said...

I do love the blast of writing that crises seems to provoke, and there is much on this page that smacks of writers thinking about writing, God, war, and the big questions in life and death. I always read the articles you post on FB, Aunt Linda, and they are always thought provoking and meaningful. It seems as though through your own struggle you are finding truths, as we all are. As I said in my entry, I keep getting signs from God everywhere, but my own depression is somehow keeping me from drawing them into me. But I notice as I talk about it, I'm realizing that I have been taking it in somehow. I realized just a little while ago, in my little dog's eyes that I had 'the comforter' right next to me, as she has been faithfully. The day of 9/11, I was watching three hours they played, (exactly how it unfolded that day) and realized that I was traumatized by the fire. I came close to understanding what those people in the building and airplane experienced, as my trailer blew up like an incinerator. It has been unnerving, I now notice everything that has the potential to start fire, I suppose the reaction much the way it is riding in a car after a car wreck. I have been meaning to call, I just haven't had the force of conversation until really just today where I'm feeling some despair and darkness but ready to write about it and get it on the outside so I can see it. I think in the end, even though Iost so much, I still have my life, and I'm the only one really aware how close I came to death. If that trailer had not been so old and decrepit, the window and the side walls would not have come out so easily, and I had just a split second to act, or I would have been burned to badly to act at all. Fire is devastating force of nature, that I did learn. Whatever else I learned is in the making, and I'm sure it will reveal itself. I love you too, thanks for writing. I'll call, soon.

salemslot9 said...

thank God
you're alright

and Baby

and your guitar

I said a
prayer for you

kanyonland King 2.blogspot.com said...

What can I add to this mix? I think of Uncles Glen, Reed, and Max
and their too early and tragic ends. Father Clyde and his endless troubles...and what you have brought into the mix is the wonderful ability to talk about it, to write about it. I remember the two one-page letters ever received from Clyde...that hardly said anything, and marvel you are discussing the burning of your trailer, your problems with alcohol, being poor, trying to succeed on and on. Yes, as your mother does to this day..but you happen to be from this tragic line of King Men. What the hell were they thinking????
Spill those words to paper and behold! You are writing family legacy, no matter what you say. Stay alive and help your brother spit out a few words (like banning you from burning weeds...hmm who else burned weeds?)
There is humour and joy and sorrow.
We all try to find our way to God and it shows in our written words. There is still discovery of ourselves. I read Linda's book she sent Spiritual Tourist...that man certainly sought out every source of Master in the world and made me realize how little I know.
Still, I am here and I can write and so can you! I, too, celebrate your life. With love, Aunt Ann.

kanyonland King 2.blogspot.com said...

What can I add to this mix? I think of Uncles Glen, Reed, and Max
and their too early and tragic ends. Father Clyde and his endless troubles...and what you have brought into the mix is the wonderful ability to talk about it, to write about it. I remember the two one-page letters ever received from Clyde...that hardly said anything, and marvel you are discussing the burning of your trailer, your problems with alcohol, being poor, trying to succeed on and on. Yes, as your mother does to this day..but you happen to be from this tragic line of King Men. What the hell were they thinking????
Spill those words to paper and behold! You are writing family legacy, no matter what you say. Stay alive and help your brother spit out a few words (like banning you from burning weeds...hmm who else burned weeds?)
There is humour and joy and sorrow.
We all try to find our way to God and it shows in our written words. There is still discovery of ourselves. I read Linda's book she sent Spiritual Tourist...that man certainly sought out every source of Master in the world and made me realize how little I know.
Still, I am here and I can write and so can you! I, too, celebrate your life. With love, Aunt Ann.

Chanelle said...

WOW ~ glad you made it out okay.