Zihuatanejo
I have always been averse to being sick. Not that anyone isn't, but
my adversity to it is uncommon, not in a petulant way. Not that I have
been spoiled by wellness to the extreme that a common cold is malaria to
me. But that a certain gravity befalls me and I am possibly far more
psychologically impacted than I am physically when I am sick.
I have soothed the burden of my illnesses over the years in one fashion. Somehow, someway, I listen to Morgan Freeman. It started when I was 11. I had a VHS tape recording of "Glory" that I wore out. Then "Driving Ms. Daisy" a year or two later, which I kept hidden under my bed so my brothers or friends wouldn't find it and ridicule me. I must have watched those two movies a thousand times.
As time passed, it remained a tradition. I am thankful he has been in more movies than anyone I know so I'm not stuck watching or falling asleep listening to the same one or two. He has been in 97 movies, and I think I have seen them all. He has been in far more movies than times I have been sick.
One of my favorites for a while was "March of the Penguins," which he narrates. I like it because there is no one else talking, except for a penguin here and there. Just Morgan Freeman's voice and the howl of the Antarctic wind the penguins and I must somehow survive.
One of the most magnificent things about all of this, is the fact that when I am sick my mind comes and goes. It perceives reality differently than when I am well. Maybe it's the delirium of the fever. But whatever Morgan Freeman movie I am watching or listening to with a fever of 103, I am in it.
I was right there charging the Confederate beach fortress with the 54th Massachusetts, and I was right there in the car with he and Ms. Daisy. And as cold as it makes me, I am in Antarctica with an egg between my feet, keeping it off the ground until the mother penguin comes home, as he narrates her return.
There is the excitement of Batman and the Alex Cross movies. There is comedy, darkness, drama, any genre I want practically, besides horror. Never knew him to play in a horror film. But my favorite of his, in fact, my favorite movie of all time is "Shawshank Redemption."
Get busy living or get busy dying has been my mantra since about the time I've heard it. I've quoted it when I've lost jobs, when relationships ended and I was heartbroken, and when I've been sick. Like a magic potion, it has always worked to get me motivated to live and to live well.
But there will come a time when the illnesses have all added up to one last one, or when one is too great to overcome for all of us. That is the climax in our movie. And when that time does comes for me, I know already what movie I'll be watching and where I will be. I will be in Shawshank prison with Red. I will ask him to get me Rita Hayworth and he will.
I will spend twenty years in prison for a murder I did not commit and orchestrate a grand scheme to one day escape with 300 thousand dollars of Warden Norton's shady money. I will send Red a postcard from Hancock, Texas and he will sit beneath a tree in a big hayfield near Buxton, Maine after he is paroled and find the box with the steamship on it I hid beneath a black volcanic glass rock that has no earthly business being in a Maine hayfield, beneath a tree where my wife and I made love and I asked her to marry me.
Then he will meet me in Mexico. An ocean that is as blue as in my dreams, an ocean that has no memory. There will be no past illnesses, or illnesses to come. No past roles, or roles yet to play. No emperor penguins, or cases for Alex Cross to solve. I will be sanding down a worthless old fishing boat when he comes up that beach, pants rolled, suitcase in hand, hat lost to an ocean breeze. That is how I will know that I made it. When my credits are allowed to roll. When I, at last, meet the voice that made me well.
I can't think or expect it will go any differently for me than that. In fact, I hope that is exactly how it is. I hope I find Zihuatanejo.
I have soothed the burden of my illnesses over the years in one fashion. Somehow, someway, I listen to Morgan Freeman. It started when I was 11. I had a VHS tape recording of "Glory" that I wore out. Then "Driving Ms. Daisy" a year or two later, which I kept hidden under my bed so my brothers or friends wouldn't find it and ridicule me. I must have watched those two movies a thousand times.
As time passed, it remained a tradition. I am thankful he has been in more movies than anyone I know so I'm not stuck watching or falling asleep listening to the same one or two. He has been in 97 movies, and I think I have seen them all. He has been in far more movies than times I have been sick.
One of my favorites for a while was "March of the Penguins," which he narrates. I like it because there is no one else talking, except for a penguin here and there. Just Morgan Freeman's voice and the howl of the Antarctic wind the penguins and I must somehow survive.
One of the most magnificent things about all of this, is the fact that when I am sick my mind comes and goes. It perceives reality differently than when I am well. Maybe it's the delirium of the fever. But whatever Morgan Freeman movie I am watching or listening to with a fever of 103, I am in it.
I was right there charging the Confederate beach fortress with the 54th Massachusetts, and I was right there in the car with he and Ms. Daisy. And as cold as it makes me, I am in Antarctica with an egg between my feet, keeping it off the ground until the mother penguin comes home, as he narrates her return.
There is the excitement of Batman and the Alex Cross movies. There is comedy, darkness, drama, any genre I want practically, besides horror. Never knew him to play in a horror film. But my favorite of his, in fact, my favorite movie of all time is "Shawshank Redemption."
Get busy living or get busy dying has been my mantra since about the time I've heard it. I've quoted it when I've lost jobs, when relationships ended and I was heartbroken, and when I've been sick. Like a magic potion, it has always worked to get me motivated to live and to live well.
But there will come a time when the illnesses have all added up to one last one, or when one is too great to overcome for all of us. That is the climax in our movie. And when that time does comes for me, I know already what movie I'll be watching and where I will be. I will be in Shawshank prison with Red. I will ask him to get me Rita Hayworth and he will.
I will spend twenty years in prison for a murder I did not commit and orchestrate a grand scheme to one day escape with 300 thousand dollars of Warden Norton's shady money. I will send Red a postcard from Hancock, Texas and he will sit beneath a tree in a big hayfield near Buxton, Maine after he is paroled and find the box with the steamship on it I hid beneath a black volcanic glass rock that has no earthly business being in a Maine hayfield, beneath a tree where my wife and I made love and I asked her to marry me.
Then he will meet me in Mexico. An ocean that is as blue as in my dreams, an ocean that has no memory. There will be no past illnesses, or illnesses to come. No past roles, or roles yet to play. No emperor penguins, or cases for Alex Cross to solve. I will be sanding down a worthless old fishing boat when he comes up that beach, pants rolled, suitcase in hand, hat lost to an ocean breeze. That is how I will know that I made it. When my credits are allowed to roll. When I, at last, meet the voice that made me well.
I can't think or expect it will go any differently for me than that. In fact, I hope that is exactly how it is. I hope I find Zihuatanejo.
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