Grey's Anatomy, Grief & Getting a Life

I don't own a T.V. any longer. It was one of the many things we shed as we made our way from the old life into this new one. I have to say I haven't missed it. And yet, I was recently faced with what to do when I wanted to see the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, the one show I have followed faithfully these past few years. For the first Packer game of the season we were fortunate enough to find a Packer bar in Sarasota that serves good beer and good food and so David was happy having his fix that way.

But I couldn't count on finding a Grey's Anatomy viewing spot and so we planned to go over to David's friend's house - the friend who so generously let us stay with him for a whole week when we first arrived in town and were looking for an apartment. I promised to bring him Thai food from his favorite restaurant for the favor. But we are trying to conserve money so when David found an online site that would play the premiere real-time (as opposed to watching it on abc.com the next day), we instead did a home-cooked dinner (David made the most yummy broiled alligator with lemon-pepper seasoning), and I was able to watch it in the comfort of our tiny new beige-tiled apartment.

After re-watching last year's season finale, just as a refresher, before I watched the season premiere I am amazed all over again by how well they write this one-of-a-kind show. I took a lot of lessons from both episodes. And that's what this blog post is all about.

The season finale I originally watched in May, of course, and it completely jibed with where I was then in my life. It also dove-tailed nicely with the planned epigraph to this book I want to write, a little bit along the lines of Eat, Pray, Love's "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth". Mine is "Do it now, do it now, do it now." At that time, I was preparing to finally quit my job and our plans to leave Wisconsin were moving ahead fast & furious. And so naturally it felt like the Meredith voice-over at the end (when George and Izzie were both dying), was speaking directly to me, telling me there really was no time to lose:
"Did you say it? I love you. I don't ever want to live without you. You changed my life. Did you say it? Make a plan, set a goal, work toward it, but every now and then look around, drink it in, cuz this is it. It might all be gone tomorrow."

I've been especially feeling that "it might all be gone tomorrow" because of my health concern as of late, and the worrying-slash-disasterizing that I do so well. When my early August endoscopy showed nothing (for which I'm grateful, believe me), the Physician's Assistant who called to give me the good news said the next step would be to get some "imaging" done. But there was the intervening trip to Seattle and then getting settled in Florida, so it was only last week that I finally had an appointment to address that.

David came with me and we met with the most wonderful family physician, who sat and talked with us for what seemed like an hour, unrushed and completely willing to admit she didn't know a ton about diet and naturopathic options (when I declined the Nexium she was recommending), but gave us names of those who do. From there we proceeded to the diagnostic lab just across the street for X-rays. We concluded that it must be a "patient's market" here in Florida, with all the older people and their health issues, because we were treated extremely well throughout our medical morning and it felt like quite a contrast to the way they do things "up North."

I told the doctor about my history of drinking and smoking. Then when she listened to my lungs she said she heard some "congestion" on the left side and I might have some pneumonia in that lung. Dear god, I thought this was all GI-related; could it be I've just had walking pneumonia for 6 months and that's why I've felt this pressure under the left side of my ribs? Astutely detecting my tendency towards hypochondria - as well as my mild OCD, she said she wouldn't be surprised if I color-coded my clothes and I admitted "well, I do wash my hands a lot" - she reassured me that it didn't "sound like cancer." Although the pessimist in me thought: how on earth could she know that?! Well, she was right - the X-rays came back and everything is "normal." Damn it! Why couldn't it have been something I could just treat with some drugs and get past?! Don't get me wrong, again I'm so grateful for the good news. But completely confounded by what the hell is going on with my body still. It's driving me crazy.

But that's where Grey's Anatomy comes in again. The season premiere - starting out with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' Stages of Grief, counting down the days since George's death, and including the girl who's unable to do anything but sit outside the hospital on a bench because the man who saved her life had died - was wonderful. I loved it when Izzie told the girl to go live her life, and the girl plaintively says "I don't know how" - Izzie tells her truthfully "no one knows how!" and that she basically owes it to George to figure it out. But as usual with the way they write this show, Izzie was also talking to herself. I also heard it loud and clear.

So, do I owe it to my Dad or to my husband or even just to myself, to figure it the fuck out finally? Perhaps. And I wonder too, if my Dad looks down from some kind of Heaven, sees the suffering of his four children and wishes he could tell us all the answers that he knows now. That it shouldn't all be taken so seriously, that it will be OK in the end and there shouldn't be so much suffering along the way. That we are alive and should enjoy it while we have it, it could be gone in an instant. That we should laugh more often, love longer and harder, and let go of our anger and resentment, all our grudges and stubborn judgements, more easily. That one message alone could save us all from countless hours of teeth-gnashing and pulling out our hair, I think.

But it's not easy, as the first episode of the two-part season premiere stated so beautifully, "In medical school we have a hundred classes that teach us how to fight off death and not one lesson in how to go on living."

And as the second episode ended, another message that went straight to the heart of how to go on: "Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone. It isn't just death we have to grieve, it's life, it's loss, it's change. And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad, the thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime. That's how you stay alive. When it hurts so much that you can't breath, that's how you survive. By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly you won't feel this way, it won't hurt this much. Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way. So the best we can do, the best anyone can do is try for honesty. The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can't control it. The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it, when it comes. And let it go when we can. The very worst part is that the minute you think you're past it, it starts all over again. And always, every time, it takes your breath away."

They were like two perfect bookends, last season's finale telling me to "do it now" and this season's premiere telling me to "get a life!" and stop dwelling on the health issue, on my dad's death, on everything that's not present moment living, or at least future plans. It's somewhat true that I've been sitting on my own bench, since I left the job in June, not moving forward with my life emotionally. This blog itself has been a lot about looking back. But it's time. I still don't know exactly what I will do next - I'm currently researching caretaking and WWOOFing in Florida, the Caribbean, Hawaii and, of course, Panama! - but it's going to be great. I hope it takes my breath away.

http://www.abc.go.com/watch/greys-anatomy/93515
http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylove.htm
http://www.ekrfoundation.org/
http://www.caretaker.org/
http://www.wwoof.org/

Stephen King's Key (To Happiness)

While chatting up the local retirees at the beach to learn as much as I can about my new surroundings, I found out that one of my neighbors is none other than the author Stephen King. He reportedly has a seasonal home on Casey Key, which is about 15 miles south of Sarasota and two blocks from where I now live in the town of Nokomis, Florida. One retired lady proclaimed he lives there a bit more than seasonally, she thought it was his main residence now she was sure, and the other lady argued back, but since neither one could truthfully claim to have met or spoken with the man, they ended in stalemate.

I was able to find this bit of information, when I raced home to google it:
http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/funcelebritysecrets/cmntyprofile-stephen-king.html

The next day was a very similar scene: the friendly older people drifting pleasantly in aquamarine water on their brightly colored "noodles" and other floaty-things and entertaining questions posed by an inquisitive me. Whole conversations had been opened up now, by queries such as "What are these white fish swimming around our legs?" and "Do you know why it was so calm here just yesterday and now there's so many waves?" That day I learned from another retiree that not only does Stephen King live on Casey Key, he's even written a book based on it. Having already obtained my Sarasota County Public Library card, I raced home to reserve Duma Key online and had it in my hot little hands the very next day.

Now, I've never been a celebrity stalker and I haven't even read much King in the past couple decades (I think he lost me with The Tommyknockers), but over the course of my life I'd have to say he qualifies as one of my big literary loves. I started reading him ravenously at the age of 12 or 13 and was always transported (as well as scared shitless at times, truthfully). My older brother started reading his novels around that time too and we bonded over how great certain scenes were in Pet Sematary and The Shining. So it feels completely serendipitous and exciting to find out that he lives here!

And then the book, Duma Key, wowza. I'm only 150 into its 611 pages but I'm already being amazed all over again by what a good writer he is.

The critics seem to agree with my assessment -
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2008/02/duma_key_by_ste.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/books/21maslin.html
http://mysteryink.typepad.com/reviews/2009/04/stephen-king-duma-key-2008.html

I was a little worried the book would freak me out and thereby color my view of this place that I am so far just loving, but I figured I can just remember that it's fiction, only loosely based on reality, and not let it get to me. Although as it turns out the book is more autobiographical than I originally thought, since a lot is based on King's own accident and subsequent physical/mental recovery. One reviewer writes, "King draws in elements of the road accident he suffered in Maine in 1999, when an inattentive truck driver shattered his hip, ribs, spine and much else besides..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Campbell-t.html

I only found this out after starting the book, when my brother mentioned it over the phone and I could barely believe my ears. And when I saw that Duma Key was published in 2008, I was even happier - I'd so lost track of what he was writing I figured the book could be years old by now. The fact that it's a recent book of his makes it all the more poignant and even, dare I say, fateful that I landed exactly here at this precise time in my life. Which I'll explain more in a minute.

More from another reviewer:
"King visited the subject of an artist who uses his craft to help rehabilitate from devastating injuries in his brilliant book Misery. This time around, the plot takes on even greater poignancy, with readers knowing that King himself suffered from catastrophic injuries several years back when he was nearly killed in a car accident.

When Edgar fumes over his foggy memory, when he agonizes over his inability to walk, it's easy to imagine the author doing those same things. This adds a sense of painful authenticity to the story, but it also evokes a strong feeling of hope once Edgar starts to recover and create his art again."
http://mysteryink.typepad.com/reviews/2009/04/stephen-king-duma-key-2008.html

So OK, does it sound too silly and pretentious to say that I am identifying with the book a ton since I'm here experiencing this same beautiful landscape and also feel I'm somewhat in recovery from the trauma of almost 11 years in corporate america having my spirit stifled, and that I hope to create my own "art" again? When I say art I mean the writing, of course, which I have always loved but hey, maybe I'll discover a painter in here too somewhere - anything is possible I think once creativity becomes unleashed!

And the truth is that there is more for me to recover from than simply a job I could barely tolerate, at times, but most of that feels too personal still and too scary to reveal fully here yet. As an adult, scary comes in more forms than pets that come to life again and creepy twins in the hallway of an empty hotel. Scary is when you don't feel equipped to deal with the reality of life and you use unhealthy ways to cope and then your health begins to suffer, at the still-young (they tell me) age of 37. These days scary for a lot of people is "how will I pay the mortgage this month?" or "I have two months until I lose my health care" so I know that I'm not the only one dealing with shit and I don't mean to trivialize what anyone else is going through by posting beach photos on FaceBook and then talk in my blog about how I'm suffering. But there's a lot to heal from and I won't trivialize myself either, this one precious life that I'm still trying to figure out what to do with, or the extreme effort it took to get to this place and the pain that is still mine to handle, for better or for worse.

"I know that people come to Florida when they're old and sick because it's warm pretty much year-round, but I think the Gulf of Mexico has something else going for it. Just looking into that mild flat sunlit calm is healing. It's a big word isn't it? Gulf, I mean. Big enough to drop a lot of things into and watch them disappear." (pg. 120 of Duma Key, by Stephen King)

I feel this could be a place and a time to heal, a real respite, as my friend Mary Kay called it when she advised me not to go rushing back into a technology desk-job even though I'm/we're worried about our money lasting. And even though I met a guy on the beach who said he's an "executive headhunter" and could find me computer work in Sarasota, no problem! Taking Mary Kay's advice, I'm somewhat reluctant to go back to that, unless they'd maybe let me wear my flip-flops and nose-ring and work part-time only. I'm feeling real "chosey" for the first time in my life practically and it feels right and good.

And it feels right that, like the Duma Key protagonist Edgar, I've left that other life for good and have started a new one here in Florida, and now there's no going back -
"What came next was a period of recovery and transition from my other life to the one I lived on Duma Key. Dr. Kamen probably knew that during times like that, most of the big changes are going on inside: civil unrest, revolt, revolution, and finally, mass executions as the heads of the old regime tumble into the basket at the foot of the guillotine. I'm sure the big man had seen such revolutions succeed and seen them fail. Because not everyone makes it into the next life, you know. And those who do don't always discover heaven's golden shore." (pg. 51 of Duma Key, by Stephen King)

It's scary, having said goodbye to all that I knew and yet not knowing exactly what is coming next, where life is taking me. But I can only hope that some sort of healing can happen now, finally, and maybe I can be one of the lucky ones who do "discover heaven's golden shore." Perhaps I've actually already found it and just need to realize it.

Other interesting links about this particular area of Florida and the book:
http://www.geovative.com/GeoTours/tourView.asp?6174Vq=HHFG
http://florida-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/travel_to_stephen_kings_sarasota

Hello to Somewhere Else

Sarasota, Florida is more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. Yes, there are 5-lane 50 MPH roads and lots of strip malls, and the economy is very depressed (perhaps it needs some Prozac?). But we found us a peaceful little community not too far from all the hectic-ness and we love it. This is just a quick snapshot and I will write/reflect more soon, on the personal life changes and what it all means and will we ever get to heaven/nirvana and be happy/finally relax and what about Obama's health care plans and climate change and overpopulation and all that....

Goodbye to Something Called "Home"

Didn't get everything we own into the Civic after all, and so rented a car at the last minute, which was a lifesaver. (Note: that's not our U-Haul in the background, but belonged to the new tenant who moved into our place, a whole day and 1/2 earlier than expected!)


Hard, so hard, to let go - even when it's a joyful choice!

Caravaning to FL in two cars has been interesting. At David's insistence we bought 2-way radios on the way out of town which helped up immeasurably getting through the nightmare that is called the Chicago-area, with all the tolls, congestion and general confusion. Further South, among mundane walkie-talkie conversation about which Interstate to take next and when to get off for gas/food/potty breaks, we've also been dreaming of the future and reminiscing about our honeymoon (road trip to Savannah, GA in 2003). Hopefully the truckers tuned into our channel found it more amusing than annoying!