Fiction | Movie Title Challenge

From Spending the Night in a Hospital Psych Ward to Living Life in the Rhythm of the 21st Century

Symphony of time

I’ve always wanted to be An American in Paris, smoking cigarettes, ignoring the Eiffel Tower, and sipping champagne while my lover brings me plates of grapes and cheese.

Sadly, the closest I’ve gotten to France is watching Amelie (great) and Emily in Paris (okay). My name, Aimée, has The French Connection with the actress Anouk Aimée. My mom thought her name was Aimée Anouk. I doubt she’d have chosen Anouk for my name and I’m happy to be Aimée.

But, that’s not what this story is about. Do you ever feel like you’re living life on a stage? You feel a disconnect, a bit like there’s an actor playing the role of you?

2000

On a warm spring day vibrant shoots spit out of tender branches. The year was 2000 when I was checked into the psych ward of our town’s hospital. I kept thinking about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. My arm felt disconnected from my body. My thoughts felt like a sound recording I’d bumped into along the way of my life. Regrets weighed heavily on my heart, mind, and spirit like the sinking Titanic. I mean I was The Graduate who escaped high school one year early, but then I fell flat on my face with a 1.0 average my first semester and mononucleusis the next.

After my roommate, Ann, tried to coax me into snuggling, I withdrew even more harshly within myself. I was scared. I wanted to go home. When she finally fell asleep and no nurses were in the hallway, I walked over to the 4th floor window. The moon was absent. Purplish-white City Lights shone in through the glass pane. There were no blinds — strangling hazard. Because they were a jumping hazard, the windows were permanently locked shut. I would have given almost anything to hear The Sound of Music in this sterile, dreadful place. Getting out became my top priority. I was determined not to be stuck in the hospital From Here to Eternity. The one-and-only night I spent in the psych ward was filled with muffled screams, cries, and groans. I was terrified of being permanently put into an insane asylum. The reality that people live in insane asylums struck me. I wanted out now!

In the sharing circle, I was the model sharer. Let. me. out. now. They wanted to hear about my trust, fear, or anger issues. Sure. no. problem.

The relationship that had sent me over the edge was a Rocky and tumultuous one with a guy named…Well, let’s call him Patton for the purpose of this story. He was the Third Man I called boyfriend. Patton’s roommate went by the nickname The Deer Hunter. One night he confided in me as he pet his St. Barnard, The Godfather, that he’d considered going by The Goodfather but thought The Deer Hunter sounded more threatening. He stretched his skinny arms above his head and downed a shot of vodka.

He was living a kushy life selling nitrous oxide and who knows what else. Not my problem. He was always nice to me and The Godfather was the sweetest dog you’d ever seen. Patton and The Deer Hunter loved animals, so they couldn’t be that bad. They even had a pair of rabbits named Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It was a common occurrence for 12 Angry Men to be circling the culdesac they lived on. We’d peer through the windows at cop cars and customers The Deer Hunter turned away without explanation.

My BFF, Annie Hall, had first had the crush on this gruff, grizzly guy, Patton. I made the mistake of going after him myself. It completely ruined our Bonnie and Clyde friendship.

After displaying my best behavior and agreeing to whatever meds were shoved my way and even accepting a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder by Doctor Zhivago — misdiagnosed — I was on my way.

Stepping into the elevator felt like freedom I never knew I was taking for granted. I exited the hospital and found A Place in the Sun to light my cigarette. Smoking is bad for you. Where would I go next? I was 20. I was supposed to be enjoying The Best Years of Our Lives with a sweet and handsome boyfriend, finishing college, finding a satisfying, gratifying, high-paid career. I was not.

I thought about my ex-fiance, Shane, as I walked the four miles to our town’s movie theatre. He’d risen up to Platoon commander, and although we no longer were romantically involved, we still cared about each other deeply. Sometimes, I’d have nightmares about him dying in drills or secret wars not broadcast on the news.

I humored my melancholy by shelling out the $4.oo to watch Almost Famous. The year was 2000. We’d just survived Y2K. The movie was all about young love and throwing caution to the wind, just having a good time. Kate Hudson was the perfect Rebel Without a Cause. I immediately developed a crush on her.

I wanted what she had in the role she played. I wanted to channel Kate Hudson through myself. I could almost taste the freedom. For two hours, in movie theatre dark, I felt high.

When I walked out, I plummeted back down into a numbed out depression.

I thought about taking a taxi back to my mom’s home, where I was living, but I didn’t want to talk to the Taxi Driver, so I walked the three miles to my front door. One of them was The Green Mile, a lush overgrowth of side-of-the road wildflowers every spring.

Feeling like a defeated Gladiator, I took the pill that’d been prescribed for my bipolar disorder. An hour later, the marrow of my bones were filled like a Raging Bull. The thoughts in my head rattled around ferociously like The Grapes of Wrath. I was seeing red and didn’t know why.

“What is going on?,” Mom asked with fear and concern.

“I don’t know! I could kill something!” I shouted.

We discontinued the meds immediately.

A few weeks later, we were driving around town and passed the building Mom always said looked like Casablanca. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I shrugged my shoulders and attempted a smile. It really wasn’t my style.

A few months later, I was back in college, navigating again through what the hell I wanted to be when I grew up. I decided to spend a year in art school. The scent of acrylics, blackroom chemicals, chalk and charcoal dust had an intoxicating affect on me — I both loved the mild high I’d get from them and also felt my head pounding in misery.

Professor Smith was always telling us The Philadelphia Story of where he came from and how the east coast was so much different from the heartland. Yeah, Yeah, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, New York, and wherever the cool cats go. We get it, Mr. Smith. You don’t have your doctorate but you do have credibility.

2010

David and I have had both of our kids and they’re toddling around our home. We’d journeyed from dwelling space to dwelling space. Cockroach exoskeletons collecting on the Rear Window. The Apartment we last lived in had monthly exterminations and a regular maintenance crew. It was a big step up.

Graduate school was behind me. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d met someone who lived in L.A.’s tent city and found Tulsa had its own River Tent encampment. I wondered what it would be like to wander up and down Sunset Blvd, but had only managed to make it to the LAX.

Over the three years we’d lived in Tulsa, I’d figured out the city’s subtle segragation lines — North by Northwest was predominantly a poor, Black, underserved area with not a grocery store for miles around. The east side of town was mostly LatinX and Asian while the Westside Story includes a narrative of cracked out white methheads. South Tulsans pretended these invisible segregation lines didn’t exist and everything was Yankee Doodle Dandy. You’d think living in a diverse city would at least come with some fun perks like bigger cities have. Like San Franciso or Portland’s Chinatown, but no such luck.

And, now we were living in our own home. The neighbors jokingly call our little section of midtown Wuthering Heights.

2019

I was exchanging hollow Terms of Endearment with family at a Thanksgiving lunch. I was terrified I’d sweat or bleed onto the furniture. I was convinced my germs were so powerful they could kill a person. Even though that wasn’t the case. It felt like my mind was Gone With The Wind and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“Why did you throw out the batter?” David asked before we left.

“You don’t want to know,” I said.

“What happened?” He pressed on.

“I’m on my period and I didn’t wash my hands good enough. I didn’t take off my wedding ring.” He sighed in exasperation.

“You know this isn’t logical, My Fair Lady, right?”

“Yeah. And, I still can’t help it,” I replied as I began cloroxing my leg for no apparent reason.

“Stop!” David hollered. You can’t do that to yourself.

I thought about all the times he’d been my Midnight Cowboy, humoring me as I listed over and over again several album’s worth of fears and paranoias. He no longer humored me. I wondered if he’d take the kids and leave me to fend with my misery.

I swallowed back tears, wishing with all my might I could make my compulsive behavior take a hike. “I know,” I said feebly. “I’m trying to stop.”

2020

2020 is the year of thinking Apocalypse Now is, well, now. Donald J. Trump is having a meltdown as he’s been elected out of the white house. We do not want to step down from his rising role as The Great Dictator. I’m not Black, but I am half-Jewish, a woman, the daughter of parents living with disabilities. It has been four tense years of wondering where the Schindler’s List type heroes are and why kids are still in cages.

We’re in the middle of a global pandemic and although I experienced another mental breakdown earlier this year — is that going to be an every twenty years kind of thing? — I did not find myself back in the psych ward of our local hospital. But, it was a close call.

A strong Network of family, friends, and coworkers does wonders for lifting you up when you’re going through a crisis — Goodfellas. And, good ladies. Over the years, my Braveheart has gotten bolder and more self-assured. But, sometimes, something’s gotta give. This time, it was me, myself, and I — mind, body, and spirit. Again. And, this was pre-pandemic.

At this point in my life, I’d accepted The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’d stopped considering myself crazy or Psycho. Ten years in cognitive behavioral therapy along with proper diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and bouts of Acute Depression was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb — the bomb being the thoughts wearing a groove in the ruminating thought-swirls of my head.

I was still lacking one key diagnosis. OCD. Dr. Strangelove confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed new medication. With the nurturing of family, friends, and former co-workers, I was on my way to a Giant wave of healing and growth.

Not long after Covid-19 became the ongoing theme of 2020, I noticed I was sleeping with my Jaws clenched tightly shut. I’ve been a tooth grinder for as long as I can remember. One morning, I woke up, looked at the ceiling and felt like I as spinning on a Tilt-a-Wheel. I tried to sit up and felt sick to my stomach. For two weeks or more, I experienced this intense Vertigo, while the global consciousness also experienced the vertigo of going through life-as-normal to the great unknown drawing out for days, weeks, months, years (?).

I listen to Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. I imagine Dances With Wolves, howling at the blood moon, and sinking into my earthsong.

Sometimes, at High Noon, I find myself chasing butterflies, wandering along On the Waterfront. I remind myself It’s a Wonderful Life. Sometimes, I find myself on a sultry summer day, wandering outside and soaking up a gentle mist of evening rain.

I like to have Close Encounters of the Third Kind — the animals and I exchange the joys and concerns of life on earth.

As the sun sinks behind the mimosa tree, I start Singin’ in the Rain, with my own words and the old melody. I’m feeling good when I see a baby squirrel staring down out of a tree. She’s chattering up a storm at me. I say to her, “It’s just Rain, Man.” She seems to calm down and I resume singing.

In 2020, I find myself trying to make it as a writer. I bop around on platforms that lean a little too Pulp Fiction for my taste from time to time. I remind myself nothing’s perfect. I’d never been one to write anything too sultry, except in my head, but I noticed Some Like It Hot when they’re reading fiction. So, I toyed with writing saucy romance.

2030

President Michelle Obama took office in January. She is currently in negotiations with The African Queen of Ethiopa and other global leaders to end world hunger. Even The Wizard of Oz and Lawrence of Arabia are involved. What? You shouldn’t be surprised time travel™ is a thing in 2030.

David and I are sitting at a hole-in-the-wall bar. There’s a piano sitting in the corner. We’re the only customers. The bartender, who goes by Ben Hur, unironically, asks us is we mind him playing the piano. Go ahead, we say, although we’re skeptical he’ll be any good.

He starts playing the keys like they’re a lover’s body. He’s playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Generally, we listen to a variety of music, and have favorites like folk singers out of Nashville — Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams.

We don’t listen to classical music, but this has us pausing our conversation and staring in awe.

On the way home, we stroll by the newly erected Jurassic Park, a theme park built onto the free Gathering Place Park. Although we won’t be trying out any of the rides, we know our kids will like to when they visit home.

In 2022 when the pandemic started to calm down a bit, I decided to collect bird figurines. I found The Maltese Falcon for a steal on Ebay. I’ve got diamond birds, stained glass birds, wooden birds, plants shaped like birds. They make my heart sing.

Still, life isn’t all a cake walk and I don’t want to get all Forrest Gump on you. Life is simply not like a box of chocolates. Living in joy, gratitude, and acceptance of change will take you a long way though.

Since my college days, I’ve given up looking for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or any other fairytale kind of living. My OCD is still being treated and I feel much better. I like to use Good Will Hunting when searching for new promising artists to fund, now that I’ve made it as a bigtime writer.

Next week, I’m flying out to Fargo to read from my new novel, The Stagecoach Affairs. I feel a little bit like I’m going into the snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’m excited, scared, and pumped full of adrenaline. The fame is still new to me.

It’s hard to believe 30 years has passed since my stay in the psych ward. It feels like I could have walked on The Bridge Over the River Kwai many times over with all the things that have happened in my adult life. I’m glad there are regulations on time machine™ usage because I’m not keen to find myself in situations like Mutiny on the Bounty. I’m taking good care of myself. I don’t want to go all Citizen Kane on things and undo my rise to fame.

Thank you, Michael Burg, MD, for this Sudoku word challenge with movie titles. I’m sure my time score is low. Hopefully my story score is high. You wonder what the truth versus fiction meter is on this story? I’m keeping that ace up my sleeve.

Michael Burg, MD was inspired by Michael Whalen’s Music Story Challenge. Be sure to check his link out for a compilation of creative reads!

I’m tagging a few folks who might like to play along. But only if you’re up for a challenge. This is harder than it looks. Tracy Stengel J.A. Taylor Bill DuBay Jr. Melissa Bee Melissa Speed AJ Krow Pretheesh Presannan Salma Alaa Aamna I. Rizvi Bingz Huang Kim McKinney and anyone else who’d like to play along.