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