Misery: An Open Letter to Stephen King

     It finally happened.

And just as I was on the brink of losing my ever lovin’ mind…..or deciding to pack up a house full of junk, dogs, kids and unmatched socks and move north.  (Actually, I believe these two things are mutually exclusive.)

Thankfully, my brain delivered a cease and desist order to the rest of my cranky and irritated self when I stepped out onto the porch this morning and didn’t break out into an all over body sweat.

My hair didn’t suddenly turn damp even though I had just blown it dry.  Beads of salty perspiration did not form down my back, nose, or thighs the minute I locked the door behind me.  I didn’t have to inhale a burst of hot, humid air right after inhaling my Cream of Wheat.

I glanced at the ladybug thermometer by the front door.  Twice.  I couldn’t believe my own eyes.  Sure enough, the little red line miraculously and quite frankly, just in the nick of time, finally dipped down past 90.  I cried out in joy.  I was going to make it.

I had seen a sign early in the week but dismissed it as a hallucination due to dehydration seeing as it was noon and I was sweeping the driveway and had lost two gallons of water weight when I saw them.  See, I had read somewhere that when you spot butterflies flapping around, it means fall is here.  But at the time I was too busy muttering like a crazy person, mopping the sweat off my brow, and telling two yellow monarchs to get a room, when I saw them shamelessly flirting and fluttering on the hood of my car.

Obviously they can’t stand the South Georgia heat either and are happy to be foot loose and fancy free.  Just like us sub-tropical living humans who have long ago given up on getting to wear the latest fall fashions of skinny jeans tucked into riding boots under chunky cable sweaters and have settled for just being able to step our flip flopped feet outside and not pour buckets after a long and sweltering summer.

A lot of people come down here to escape the harsh winters and the very real diagnosis called Seasonal Disorder.  Evidently not having a view from your window because snow is covering it up does crazy things to people. 

My friend Jennifer, from Jasper, Alabama spent one winter in upstate New York and high tailed it back down here to the island as soon as the ground thawed and she could pack her car without losing her fingers.  Her bulldog, Bogart, however, is now in psychotherapy and on a strict diet of Prozac and exercise.  I am happy to report he’s been here a year and a half is finally getting better.

One of my favorite authors, Robert Goolrick, was actually inspired by stories he found published around the early 1900’s in a small Wisconsin town paper and wrote A Reliable Wife based on his findings.  Apparently, during vicious months-long, white-out, lake effect snow storms, a whole lot of people tended to act abnormally.  You know, like severing their own limbs and taking out their entire family with an axe over an argument about what’s for dinner. You can’t tell me crazy doesn’t make for some really good fiction.   

Just imagine the scary genius of Stephen King and would it exist if he lived in a sunny bungalow in L.A. instead of the blistering windy winters of Bangkok, Maine.  Which reminds me, I was excited to find out Stephen King is writing a sequel to The Shining, out next year.  Cannot wait, let me tell you. 

But after reading that this novel, like 90% of all his other ones, would once again be set in a snowy New England town, I felt like he should know it doesn’t have to be winter and it doesn’t have to be up North for someone to lock themselves in their house for months, stop shaving, and start having conversations with imaginary people or, at the very least, the weather reporters on the TV.  It happens at here at my house every summer. 

Here’s my letter:

Dear Mr. King,

First off, let me tell you I am a HUGE fan.  But not the stalker kind you are used too, I’m sure, so please don’t stop reading and send the cops to the return address.  It’s just thanks to you I am deathly afraid of clowns, identical little twin girls, walk-in freezers, and anyone who closely resembles Kathy Bates or shares her last name.  This is most certainly not a bad thing since I enjoyed every sleepless night and terror induced dream.

I also enjoy the detailed descriptions of your snowy New England: the howls of the relentless wind against the glass-paned windows of a creaky old Victorian, the snow banked steepness that surrounds a dark and dangerous remote mountain road, the candle-lit silence in strange rooms rendered dark by downed power lines and frozen limbs off trees.  I feel closed in just by simply reading what’s written between your pages, suffocated by the frosty isolation you pull us into like a secret trap door that opens in the vast whiteness that protects your world, then shuts, leaving us secluded and alone teetering on the brink of a quiet sort of madness.

But, see Stephen, even though it’s been 35 years since Jack’s been a very bad boy and went on to become that great, big alcoholic care taker in the sky, or at least for eternity at the Overlook Hotel, doesn’t mean you can’t take his tricycle riding, scarred for life, psychic son, Danny out of your freezing New Hampshire and place him down here for a summer.  There really it’s much of difference.  Trust me.  They’re both a different kind of hell.

See, Steve, down here people are driven to their own kind of slow boiling insanity that sneaks up on them around May like a swarm of sand gnats starved since early spring. It starts as a simmer, this unyielding heat, a tease, a tickle that gets you going outside in the morning, but then causes you around noon to make a hasty retreat back inside where you then never leave.  Down here in coastal South Georgia, the extreme heat, much like your freezing winters in Maine, brings out the crazy, if you know what I mean. 

I have seen normal, sweet-loving children’s heads spin with their teeth bared and finger nails clawed in.  I have watched conscientious mothers take their bed, doors locked; pints of ice cream the only things they let in.  I have witnessed yards over-grown, beer bottles strewn, and grown men sitting in baby pools to avoid the wife, the crushing heat, and the terrors they helped spawn without caring who sees. 

   There’s the creak of the ceiling fan that taunts you overnight while you try and sleep on top of the sheet.  There are the bugs, the lizards, and the marsh crabs that let themselves in without knocking first to escape the scalding sun, scaring you half to death.  There’s the lifeless, flat, hot air that rushes through the holes in your screens and under your doors, leaving a $600 dollar electricity bill that makes you want to let out a blood curdling scream.  

See, scary stuff really does happen down here in the South, Steve, when the heat’s 110 degrees.

Just a thought.

Anyway, thanks for your time and good luck on the new book.  If you need any help, you know where to find me.  Actually, I will finally be outside now that my driveway isn’t giving off steam and the heels of my feet won’t burned off walking to out get the mail…(not looking for your responding correspondence, of course.  Remember, I’m not that crazy.)   

Talk to you soon,

Laura 

 

I’ll let y’all know if I hear back from him.  I’m not holding my breath, but at least the blustery gasp of ocean air has cooled a bit and I can safely say I have survived another hot and humid summer.  Looks like fall on the island has saved my sanity once again.  Bring it on.

It's a Green Thing

 

           Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Envy is ignorance.”  And of course, he’s right. 

          We all envy, or tend to covet, that which we are unaware and don’t know a whole heck of a lot about.

            For me, I’ll admit, it can be a daily occurrence.

I smile outwardly at the guy who hops out of his car in the Harris Teeter parking lot, his hands gripping the torn piece of notebook paper like it was a winning lottery ticket on a windy day.  I nod my head as he looks up in intense concentration from trying to memorize his wife’s grocery list, grabs his cart and heads inside.

I think how lucky his wife must be.  How my own husband hasn’t set foot inside a grocery store in the ten years we lived here except on the 17^th of October, 2010 for a gallon of fat free milk and a loaf of Wonder Bread.  I remember the exact day three years later because of the texts, photos and subsequent Facebook posting from friends and family documenting his epic maiden voyage.  I also remember because we ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a week on rye bread downed with a hearty glass of buttermilk.

I sigh in frustration as my husband…again…leaves his plate exactly three inches from the two contraptions that were built to clean them.  You know, the dishwasher and the kitchen sink.  Not to mention, his half glass of milk is left sweating on the island, his balled up napkin is on the floor and he’s now having fun swimming with the girls while I mop, bleach, bake, sterilize, sanitize and sweep. 

I feel envious; I do, of all those women out there whose significant others lend a helping hand with the day-to- day doldrums.  I know they are out there.  I’ve seen them with me own eyes.  The ones who help clean up after birthday parties, plan cookouts and dish out food they’ve cooked all day with a smile on their faces.

I feel jealous and bad too, most days, about just being a mom.  Surely, there are women out there that can get their kids to school on time, handle deadlines and PTA meetings and remember to bring two dozen water bottles and three bags of pretzels for snack at school.  I know these moms have never been yelled at by their own kids, never told they had “ruined their lives,” or heard a request for adoption with a family of traveling trapeze artists because at least, “their life turn out to be somewhat interesting and a whole lot more fun.”  Yes, I want to be one of these women who can do it all and never feel like a failure.

But then I think:

The man at the grocery store’s wife is terribly sick.  He has no idea how to help her get better or if she ever will get better.  All he knows is this is what he can do right now.  In this moment. He can make her something she probably won’t be able to keep down but it’s the only thing he can think to do.  To show her how much he cares about her, to nourish her, to hang on.

While my husband ignores his plate by the sink and plays in the pool with his daughters, there is a single mom down the street.  She’s worked all day, already cried silently in her car before pick-up, wondering how she is going to do this all by herself.  She washes dishes as her kids play without her in the backyard, already stressing on unanswered work e-mails, backed up laundry and mounting bills.  She knows it’s almost time to call them in for bed, another day gone- just like that.

And as I go to bed, feeling defeated, feeling like a failure as a mom, there is a women not too far from me who turns in for the night wishing her child was still with her.  Even if it were just to tell her she was “ruining his life” because at least she could hold him and hug him-breathe in the smell of him- and tell him she didn’t carry about any of that- never did.  She only loved him with all and every molecule of her being.

Yes, envy is ignorance just as the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

But as Walt Whitman believed, “a leaf of grass is no less than the journey- work of the stars.” 

It takes just one, single blade of grass- not an acre, forest, slab or crate- to see the magic which is humanity.

We shouldn’t keep count of how much or how little we have. 

            We should only reflect and be grateful for each others’ blessings

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT

Have you ever witnessed something random and seemingly benign, something inconsequential to your daily life that ends up staying wedged in your head forever and till the end of time?

And even though it doesn’t have a single thing in the world to do with you, you still can’t shake it, move it or erase it from your brain.  For me, I was home on break from UGA some 20 years ago and went to one of those chain bookstores in Augusta; I can’t remember which one.  But I do remember seeing a teenager standing at the sales counter, red faced and stuttering while two cashiers, around my age, looked at him and laughed, mocking him while holding out a phone.  It finally hit me; the car I walked by on my way in, with the busted driver side window, was his and he didn’t know what to do or who to call to handle the vandalism or theft.  He just stood there motionless, embarrassed.  Before I could even finish processing what was going on, he just ran out, got in his car and took off, the pouring rain stinging his face through the broken glass.

I felt this undeniable, hyper pang of empathy, pain, understanding and embarrassment all wrapped up into a big ball of a stomach ache.  I felt it.  For him. Still. Now.

But then sometimes when I think of this nameless stranger, I picture what he might be doing today and I smile.  I am sure he’s probably a brilliant surgeon or a foreign journalist covering war torn regions.  Maybe even an air traffic controller or a song writer making a good living behind the scenes….where it counts just as much as those who make their way in a “people-person’s” profession.

I guess I just don’t understand why being “social” is such an important character trait- like kindness and a sense of humor.  Because let’s face it, a lot of people aren’t kind and a whole heck of a lot of people don’t have a healthy sense of humor, so why is it considered so bloody important to possess a certain high level of social aptitude….an ability to be “on” when put with a large group of people.

Maybe I can’t shake the image of the kid because I identify with him so much.  I was and still am an introvert.  You never grow out of it like you do shoes and temper tantrums.  You learn to cope, to handle crowds, the awkward glares and the eye rolls.  I was and still am a little different.

I am okay with it now.  I guess that’s the blessing of getting older.  You care less about outside stuff and more about the insides. 

But what do you tell your kids when it happens to them?  This call to integrate socially by teachers and counselors, peers, grandparents and random friends?

To me when I hear my child needs to work on her “socialization” (more sleep-over’s, more play dates, more group interaction) all I hear is let’s work on getting her to “fit in.”

Why does she need to fit in or be like everyone else when she perfectly wonderful the way she is?  And if people don’t understand her, is that really a reason for her to change…to become a generic version of normal? 

Mrs. Payne, my child’s fourth grade teacher said it best.  “She’s going to be a great adult.”  And it’s true.  She doesn’t necessarily fit in with her peers because she’s an old soul in a ten year old body.  Why would I tell her to act her age when growing up is about growing forward not backwards? 

One of my friends said something to me not too long ago.  I think she was being funny, not unkind, but she said someone asked if we were Amish and do I ever cut my daughter’s hair?

I didn’t take offense, or explain that she’s been growing it out for Locks of Love until it gets all the way down her back so she can donate not one but two locks of hair.  That’s her truth and no one else’s.  I don’t want to raise her feeling like she has to explain or qualify her differences. What’s the point in that?   

It’s one thing to teach your kids to have a tough skin. I’m sure there is validity in that….it will save them some hurt and pain down the road. But that takes a lot of energy that can be used more wisely. I guess I would prefer my kid’s skin to be pliable and soft and kind and to stretch and feel deeply about others.   Their skin shouldn’t be impenetrable.  No one’s should.

How can you move proverbial mountains and change the world if you don’t have a whopping amount of faith and empathy towards your fellow mankind?

My girls have a friend named Dane who is 10 years old and moved down here a few years ago from Chicago. Dane is super sweet and super cute with long brown hair he sometimes dyes and cool, funky clothes (that, if only were my size, I would so be borrowing.)  He likes to paint his nails and dress up as Steven Tyler and considers Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert as his musical heroes.  See, he loves to perform and I am telling you right now, he has the voice of an angel.  You’ll be hearing about him one day.  Of that, I am certain.

What is interesting about Dane is that a lot of adults don’t get him but all of the kids, once they get to know him, adore him.  They do.  It’s not in spite of all of his differences, but directly and specifically because of them.  They deep-down love him because of his freedom to express who is truly is. It’s a wonderful thing to see. 

Maybe it’s because young kids haven’t yet bought in to what “the norm” is supposed to be? Maybe it’s because our kids wish to grow up in a world where they are celebrated for being their own unique and one-of-a-kind selves not a carbon copy of certain ideals defined by the majority of a generation that grew up before them in different times and circumstances?  Who are we to teach them what is typical when, if we are straight-up honest, don’t really want to be “typical” ourselves?

Why do we says things like “think outside of the box”, “break the mold”, “embrace change” and then roll our eyes or mock someone who doesn’t think or act like us?  Why do we say you should never judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes but start talking bad about them as soon as they’ve walked out a door only four feet away? 

I am not saying we should all dare to be different.  I just think we should choose not to judge or dismiss those who dare to be different than everyone else.

Steve Jobs once said "Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…the ones who see things differently—they’re not fond of rules…You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things…they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who do.”

And I have no doubt my misfit, awkward bookstore boy is one of them.