The Mortal Coil
How do we live, knowing what’s to come?
The onset of a New Year always brings out the introspection in me. The title of this story aside, I never have been, and don’t want to be a downer. Someone who comes across as depressing and dismal. I’d much rather be perceived as a fearless badass with a wicked sense of humor. Someone who is kind, empathetic and fun to be around. You know, the “life of the party.”
But every now and then, I find myself mired in darkness, thick as treacle, but without the sweetness. It’s a large part of my DNA and I’ve learned to live with it, ungraciously.
Maybe it’s the cold, gray Chicago day that has prompted my mind to wander down this bizarre road. To be clear, I’m not depressed. It’s nothing like that. In fact, I’m in a fairly good frame of mind. I just got to wondering, the way most people do, about the bigger picture, you know? The answer to the eternal question, “Why are we here?” And more importantly, “Are we doing it right? Living right?”
Perhaps the catalysts for my murky ruminations, especially of late, are the constant, niggling reminders of my own mortality, even though thankfully, recent tests have shown I’m relatively healthy. Again, like many folks, I experience generalized aches and pains that come and go. Just when I think they’re gone, they mysteriously reappear, like robocalls that somehow manage to slip through, even though you have the blocking “app.”
When I was younger, “death and dying” wasn’t a topic to be dwelled on or even thought about. I was fairly reckless in the way I lived my life, the way many people were back then. Partying was the norm. Drinking, experimental drug use, and all that fun stuff that after a certain point, turns on us.
I was lucky, blessed really, that I hadn’t experienced any significant health issues. Oh, I had a benign tumor removed from my breast when I was twenty-one, but other than the yanking of my tonsils when I was five, I sailed through life unencumbered by the fears that would grip me, many years later.
As the years passed, and I saw several close relatives endure the ravages of cancer, and then drop dead, I finally had to face the fact that my time was finite. As it is for everyone. Along with this came the realization that my particular gene pool sucked.
When both my parents died from Stage 4 lung cancer nearly five years ago, while I was being treated for breast cancer, the Truth came home to roost. And that is, we are all on borrowed time.
Knowing this, that we’re all going to perish someday, how is it possible to live a happy life? Or, is that the very reason we must strive to be happy?
I ask this out of genuine curiosity. I’m not here to bum anyone out, but, as I have to be especially vigilant where my health is concerned, I find myself obsessing over matters that never came to mind, before. For someone with OCD, like myself, these dark thoughts dig in and take hold like a hawk that lights on a cute baby bunny, and swoops off to places I’d rather not go.
For those of you who are able to be “mindful,” and meditate and generally achieve a state of calm, how do you do it? What’s your secret, please? Yoga? Chanting? Some new supplement that I haven’t yet come across? (And I’ve come close to trying them all.) I could use some help here.
Speaking of yoga, I gave up my beloved cardio for a day and tried that, as well. Once. I bought a handful of beginner DVDs, fired one up and got dizzy after thirty minutes of struggling to hold poses and control my breathing.
I’ve found that constant movement works better for me. I can’t sit for long. I always have to be doing something, cleaning something, going somewhere to get something. And on, like that. Yes. It’s exhausting. But, at the very least, all that loco-motion keeps me fit.
So, back to death. As we go about our day to day routine, worrying and fretting over the mundane, with the full knowledge that one day, we’ll simply shut down…what keeps us chugging along? Continually striving to do better, be better, achieve that dream, reach that goal? Make more money?
When you think about it, objectively, it seems stupid to have to die, doesn’t it? What the hell are we here for, anyway?
What the hell is Donald J. Trump here for??
I’m being inane I realize, asking questions that man has asked since jump street, but I hope to initiate a conversation that will, perhaps, help someone like myself, who could use a light sprinkling of fairy dust. A kiss from a unicorn. Or a good, hard kick in the ass.
Even as I piss and moan over our mortality, I’m still chasing my dreams. I haven’t given up, yet. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. For me, that’s a dangerous state to be in.
And, I don’t stew over myself, only. I worry about my husband, our cats, my sister, her family. Bring it on! I have enough angst for everyone.
My parents eschewed organized religion. My Jewish father and Italian mother were not what I would call, believers, at least while they were still relatively healthy. After their diagnosis of lung cancer, as their own dire fate loomed, that may have shifted. I believe it did for my father. How genuine that shift, or whether it was born out of fear, I can’t say.
Our family celebrated everything, without truly understanding the significance behind holidays like Christmas or Yom Kippur. I won’t deny that we had a hell of a lot of fun, regardless.
My mom used to joke that my dad considered himself a good Jew because he ate brisket on Rosh Hashanah. I laughed at that then, and I still do. My folks were a couple of characters. And even though I’ve been brutally honest about our relationship and some of the horrendous behavior I was privy to growing up, still, I loved them very much.
Even though my two siblings and I were brought up without any religious instruction, I consider myself to be a spiritual individual, even though I’m not entirely sure what that means. I’d like to believe in something. Something that makes all this other crap make sense. Something that will allow me to be less afraid — and present, in the here and now.
Who wants to waste the time they do have, worrying about the time they ultimately won’t?
What do you think? Should I give yoga another shot? Revisit the book I bought but never read, “Buddhism for Dummies?”
As I ramble on here, it occurs to me that a passage from the wonderful, 1997 film, “Eve’s Bayou,” encapsulates everything I just wrote, yet does it so much better. I haven’t been able to forget it and heartily recommend it for the storyline, the acting, and the sensual cinematography.
The character who speaks the following dialogue is named Mozelle. She is a psychic, both blessed and cursed in that she can see the future, which provides her a tidy living amongst her neighbors in the bayou, but in return for her “gift,” every man who falls in love with her dies.
In a conversation with her young, precocious niece Eve, Mozelle says:
“Life is filled with goodbyes. A million goodbyes. And it hurts every time. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve lost so much, I have to find new things to lose. All I know is, there must be a divine point to it all, and it’s just over my head. When we die, it will all come clear, and we’ll say, “So that was the damn point.” And sometimes I think there’s no point at all, and that’s the point. All I know is most people’s lives are a great disappointment to them. And no one leaves this earth without feeling terrible pain. And if there is no divine explanation at the end of it all, well, that’s sad.
“No point.” Maybe that will have to do.
Does that work for you?
Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.
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