Living In Gratitude

Originally Posted 8-26-12 to Facebook

Do you know those moments that hit you, that pull an emotional trigger toward a particular time in your life? Maybe you don't have those. I don't know. Maybe you're manlier than I'll ever be. Either way, I had one of those moments this evening, and again I lost my shit.

Most of the time it hits me when I'm listening to a particular song, or reading a particular story. And perhaps you've read my posts about my brother. They are numerous. This time, it was one particular line couched in the setup of an entire movie.

This evening I watched 50/50. An at times funny movie. A melancholy movie. My favorite kind I've come to realize. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a 27 year old man who finds out he has cancer and is forced to deal with that. In general movie fashion, he has his difficult moments and then changes his life for the better. It's a movie that allows the audience to feel good. To feel connected to the positive things in this world; overcoming adversity, connecting in family and life's loves, etc. The movie did what it needed to do. It not only solidified my respect for JGL, but also confirmed a growing appreciation and respect for Anna Kendrick. She's much to achieve as an actor, but she is absolutely a rising young star, and a cutie.

JGL's character is dealing with cancer and they create a wonderful sense of numbness, of dealing with a certain sense of dumbfounded awe at one's own situation. He's sad, angry, hurt, afraid and most of all muscling through as all humans often do in terrible times of their life. He braves most of this with a grim expression and tries to suffer and find humor in the day to day. But when it comes down to it, he's scared.

They touch on this indirectly with an end-scene shot here or a montage there, but it's never brought to the forefront until one moment when he's about to go into surgery. The anesthesiologist has given him the drugs that will take him under so he can go into surgery. His mom and dad are nearby and he begins to freakout. Things are moving fast.

He's spent so long trying to simply muscle through and in this one scene he's about to lose it. What all of it means has finally hit him. He's about to go under and he says something trying to check and recheck what the anesthesiologist has just said. But the line that hit me hard is directed to his mother, who he has had a hard time connecting with. “You're going to make sure I wake up?”

A fearful command and question.

This hit me hard.

When I was a sophomore in college, my right lung collapsed. I was in the house I shared with 3 other house-mates, alone, just back from winter vacation, none of the others would arrive for a couple days. I had gotten back from work and was feeling feverish, had a bit of a cough. I went to bed hoping I'd simply feel better. Late in the night, my fever had broken and I had soaked my sheets with sweat. Later that morning I got up to go the bathroom and felt a terrible pain in the right side of my chest. A surprising pain. I thought perhaps it was merely some horrid chest congestion. A simple illness I could muscle through. I tried to sleep on my stomach with pillows under each shoulder to keep me propped up. It didn't work.

Six hours later I called my dad to make sure I was still covered under his insurance and I was. I then called my friend Eric who a couple hours later was able to take me to the clinic. Once at the clinic they did some tests and then said they needed to X-Ray. This was the first moment I grew scared. Something wasn't right. We did the X-Rays and when the Dr. came back with the results the first thing he said was, “We have called an ambulance.” He then began to explain that my right lung had collapsed.

The worst thing that had ever happened to me was a broken finger when I was like 8. And as they wheeled me out on a gurney to the ambulance and my friends were left wondering what the hell was going on, I simply tried to ignore what was happening, to not engage with the reality of the situation.

I was transported to a hospital E.R. And they cut into the side of my chest to insert a tube to free up the pressure around my lung. I then spent a week in the hospital before the realized they needed to do surgery.

The line from the movie hit me hard, because I hadn't realized until then just how scared I really was. I had not engaged with the reality so well that I had blocked that fear out. And it hit me again. The sentiment that JGL shared in that one line managed to sum up the sheer weight of my fear. I didn't know enough then to not fear that I might not wake up again. And for this to catch me now was surprising, but good...

I feel intensely grateful to those who stood by my side. They know who they are, but I'm not sure they know how indebted I am to them.

Mostly I feel some shame. My family, my dearest friends and the person I love most in the world were there for me. They stood by my side when I couldn't mutter anything more than ridiculous statements about my hallucinations from the pain medicine. I have not been there for them as often as I should have been. I've never been as strong as they were. I have not stood by their sides when they were suffering, the way they did for me in my most fearful moments.

Fortunately, 50/50 and many other movies like it have an excellent lesson to be learned. There may be opportunities to change your life for the better. It'd be a good idea to take them.  

Rest in Peace Ray Bradbury

Originally Posted 6-16-12 - on Facebook

Wrote this piece this morning. I haven't had a good cathartic experience like this in a while. Eyes a bit swollen and nose a little raw.

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Rest in Peace Ray Bradbury - 6-16-12

http://soundcloud.com/neilgaiman/the-man-who-forgot-ray-bradbury

Ten Days ago Ray Bradbury died. Yesterday a story was posted online about a piece of fiction written by Neil Gaiman. He wrote a story titled “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury.” A tribute he wrote for Bradbury's birthday years ago. A tribute to one of the late author's stories wherein he remembers Edgar Allen Poe, “Usher II” I think. I read the intro to the piece and soon after found an audio file of Gaiman reading in front of an audience. An audience here in Portland. An audience that welcomed people I work with. I've listened to Mr. Gaiman reading the story several times now. And likely I will hear a hundred more. It is without question the most fitting tribute I believe I've ever heard.

On June 6th, 2012 he passed away at the age of 91. An author, a writer, a poet, a playwright, A Science Fiction storyteller. His work is like none other and it pains me to admit even here how little I have read of his works. A few short stories here and there, a few novels, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Fahrenheit 451. I shall have to remedy that. Read more of his work. But what I remember most is his book on Writing. Zen in the Art of Writing. While most were inspired more by his stories and I am sure I will be as well, I was inspired by him talking about writing. About why he wrote, his philosophy of the craft. The passion with which he wrote, the passion with which he lived his life. Writing stories to remember those passions.

Ray Bradbury died three days after my birthday and I'd like to think that a part of his spirit is in me now. As I believe my brother's spirit is in me, protecting me. It's hard to walk the line of not believing the supernatural of any kind and keeping the thought alive that my brother still watches over me. But it's there. A desire to be filled with magic.

I'd like to think that Ray Bradbury left a little piece of something for writers, for young people and their elders who read his stories, for the imaginations of everyone, everywhere. But mostly I'd like to think that he left something for me. This is of course more to my benefit. More to my own personal need. As a man who is swiftly becoming not so young any more, who feels he has wasted years of his life not being himself, who feels there's still a small fire in the middle of his chest just waiting to burn white hot. To believe Ray Bradbury is there helps. It helps me have hope. It helps me like believing my brother is there, that the strength and intelligence and fire he brought to the world helps me.

I want to believe I still have time. That perhaps, just maybe I still have stories to tell. Stories people will want to read or hear. More to the point, maybe I will finally begin to tell the stories that I have been holding on to for far too long.

Neil Gaiman's story is beautiful, and brilliant, and heartbreaking all at once. In it a man has begun to forget words, concepts, and people. He has one particular person in mind that he's trying to remember, an author that gave him so much. He tries to sneak up on the memory from the side. To remember his stories and see if he can get to the memory he's trying to reach. He remembers the characters of Fahrenheit 451 as they remember parts of classic novels, classic stories, cultural touchstones of humanity's existence. And it's almost impossibly fitting.

My wife's family tells stories all of the time. It's a family trait that none of them can actually help, but commit. And the stories they tell are about their family. They are stories about each other. They are stories about loved ones they dare not forget. I've heard these stories again and again, until almost I could tell them. And for a person that was once outside of this family looking in, it's an intensely beautiful thing to see.

Their love of one another is strong and grows stronger as they tell those stories again and again. They bond over where they came from. They connect and laugh, and love, and cry...together. But they remember. Each of them holding onto pieces of those they've lost, sharing with one another, arriving at the name, the concept, the person from the side. From every possible side. Like starring just off center of a really faint star so your eyes will catch its light all the clearer.

I want to remember my brother that way. And I worry sometimes that some may think I cannot let go of my brother. That I will ruin myself remembering the event that shaped so much of my young life. But who am I if not a person who at times wishes his brother was still around. I will tell the stories of that event to myself again and again just to remember a piece of him. I will also tell the happy stories that I know of my brother. I will remember.

I remember running barefoot in the snow in our backyard one winter until my feet were so cold he had to rub them until the were warm enough for me to move. I remember playing with plastic dart guns in our room until I got dart to the eye. I remember watching The Adventures of Mark Twain with him and marveling at the wonder and craft of claymation. I remember his face and a memory of him throwing a baseball into a tire attached to the fence. I remember his smile. I remember him giving hilarious voice to the silent animals on nature documentaries. But I don't remember his actual voice. I don't remember the last thing he might have said to me. I've forgotten pieces I'd rather not forget. People will remember my brother, because I remember my brother.

There are stories that will help me remember. There are stories in me that help make this world clearer to me. There are stories that help me with the heartbreak. There are stories wherein I can explore this world in ways I'll never physically be able to. There are stories in me to help me understand concepts and ideas I've only dreamed of. I'll come at these stories from the side, I'll stare at them from just off center hoping I can catch glimpses of their brightness. There are stories I should tell.

We will all remember Ray Bradbury. We'll read his stories. We'll listen to him speak in videos and recordings. We'll remember him, because Neil Gaiman remembers him, because readers and writers will remember Neil Gaiman. We'll remember Ray Bradbury because we will have a little piece of him in all of us. And I have a piece of him in me. I have to believe that. And I'll remember his writing advice, because his writing advice is the same I think he'd give to me on how to live my life.

“If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.”

“But today—explode—fly apart—disintegrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, reading your story, will catch fire, too?”

“Find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all his heart. Give him running orders. Shoot him off. Then follow as fast as you can go.”

“I claim no victory. But there was blood on my gloves when I hung them up.” --Ray Bradbury

RIP Ray Bradbury – 1920 - 2012

RIP Scott David Cushing – 1974 - 1993