I was looking for a photographer to take some stills of Kamala in character drag and when I was looking up my favorite personal photographer, Debra McClinton, I found out she'd jumped off the bridge before Thanksgiving. 39 years old and gorgeous and sweet and funny and creative as hell and wealthy enough to own a huge house in San Francisco that she felt artistic solidarity shame for having while the rest of us were living stacked up like cords of wood.
I said don't waste time on shame for having a lot! Especially because she shared so much of her talent, you just didn't want her to waste any moments feeling bad. And why waste time not enjoying what you have? If you get reincarnated into a meat cow, you'll wish you'd enjoyed every sofa moment you've ever had in previous lives as well as others' lives. Take what you can get.
Her own sister had committed suicide a few years earlier and there are sisters left that I'm worried as hell about. When something happens to a sister, it's like someone on your chain gang died and you drag them around with you forever, trying not to fall down with them. It's hard to be separate from a sibling, no matter how far away you try to move or act like you are.
Click the title to this entry above to go over to the memorial site, or this.
All of this suicide makes me ache in solidarity for yet another artist losing to the black dogs of depression, but then it makes me angry. Angry because I'm jealous? We must always ask ourselves if anger at suicide or the success of Diablo Cody makes us jealous, or if we expected something else. Jealous of suicide because whenever things get bad enough to consider it when the rainbow has not been enuf, it seems a viable alternative. However, whenever anyone does it, it seems so ungrateful or rude somehow.
Rude.
Like Diablo Cody's success seems rude because on Oprah she shrugs and raises her seen-it-all eyebrow and says something like, "what? it's easy. how long does it take to write a screenplay--90 pages, so it takes only a few months?" And I'm huddled on the floor in a fetal position twisted in my own entrails after seven years of repeatedly disemboweling myself while folks in LA jump up and down like little kids and yell, "Do it again! Do it again!" regarding yet another draft.
And maybe suicide seems rude perhaps because someone else has always beaten me to the punch and stolen my dramatic "take that!" thunder. But mostly it's rude because it wreaks havoc on other people, as if the black dogs of depression not only came over to dinner and never left, but gang raped you and did the money shots by spooging their rancid life force on your face.
And if whoever committed suicide seemed to have so much-- money, looks, TALENT, fine equipment, a house in san francisco or land (the last three women who killed themselves had nice properties in or around San Francisco)...
then i wonder, "What the hell am I still even doing here???"
And Debra even had a little daughter. First I think the pain must be soooo bad, we can't even fathom, if you will leave a daughter in someone else's hands. Most artists are control freaks and can't even leave the rising of bread dough to anyone else. And then I think how selfish do we have to be to not only spooge rancid life force on our friends' faces, but leave a baby girl behind?
And that seems accurate, if not pretty, for artists must be self absorbed to figure out what to do next.
And I didn't even find out how Debra killed herself until I read a stranger's post on a separate blog. Ew. [ http://www.svmoms.com/2007/11/social-suicide.html ] And then the reason Debra killed herself just gets clearer and clearer. California's already one hell of a place to have a hard time in, but when no one will talk about what's going on, it makes you insane.
And on her memorial blog, all you hear about is how stunning she was and how much she gave. The black dogs are right there as ghosts. Well, if she was so cheerful and beautiful and everything, WHY DID SHE JUMP OFF A BRIDGE, HUH? that's what i wanna know. her memory is what it is. don't worry about reminding everyone how amazing she was. but it's doing her a disservice by ignoring what was agony for her. like bleeding to death while people are trying to freshen up your dying pallor with rouge because they can't handle seeing the mess of blood.
to want to understand is to love her. to discuss through your own agony and discomfort is to honor her.
but for those who are left, it must also be discussed because if that seems like the only alternative when things get bleak... why not? remember how contagious suicides were in the eighties? i do. it was like, "if he did it, it can't be that hard!" (being around success is also contagious)
like for her remaining sisters. two already committed suicide. the young ones who are left are dragging two bodies of their sisters with them for the rest of their lives while everyone else fights over mundane crap to avoid the real pain and sadness. debra's parents wouldn't even mention the four-year-old's father in the obituary. how evil is that for her little daughter?
you see the seeds of pain in pettiness and lack of character in a pinch.
I think it's hard to not be fabulous anymore. Everyone seems to be doing so well these days. It's hard to be a fuck up. why must we only hear about bad times after the fact? it makes me not believe very much in the here and now. you might be lying to me. i might be lying to you.
see it's hard for me to post on this clog sometimes when i'm down and feel nappy and smelly. it's downright embarrassing that hard times can't be contained in a nice 2 oz. container and be over and done with in a few days.
but i do continue to share whine complain and rejoice in the little and big victories because while it's often embarrassing, all witnesses eventually do die, and more than anything i see what a disservice cute, clipped stories to do us. i want other budding artists to see the paste up lines of accomplishing anything massive and know this is part of the bargain of going for anything you really want. it'll all be distilled down into a cute meaningless paragraph of flap copy later when i'm successful or dead.
but these are the long and sometimes arduous paste up lines for a conscious life where i'm doing everything i do on PURPOSE. not because it fell into my lap.
but when it goes well, there's not another feeling like it. it makes falling in love with a mere mortal downright next to impossible. grounded love is a different story. but falling in love short circuits the arduous work to our own greatness. you tell me about my eyes, so it is so! until the expiration date is up. but when i AM great for and to myself, there is no real expiration date.
regarding a grounded love with another person: add that with seeing beauty in each other's imperfections, without trying to tame or change each other, i'm okay as long as i remember not to take all that work for granted.
so here i am, telling those of you who need to not feel alone, that i have really hard days where i don't want to get out of bed. everything seems easy to everyone else (i know it's really not true). i want to stay alive and be relevant to others. not IRrelevant, which i often feel these days.
please write people fan letters, anyone. your neighbor, a minor theatre star who touched you. we should all write each other fan letters because like a smile from a stranger on the street, sometimes they are like lifelines that come to you just in the nick of time.
so thank you to so many of you who've written to me throughout the years as i've tried new creative things and faltered and tried again. thank you for the generosity of your time. i dare say that i think you've kept me going as an artist. let me know i'm not alone when the black dogs come to pillage my refrigerator and spooge on my face.
this is when i miss the "fuck you! i love you!" reality of back east. when complaining is solidarity. not the california belief that you're so fucking ungrateful for all the damn sunshine and that your sadness is contagious.
thank you again. pass the admiration on. really. to the lunch lady, to anyone. it doesn't cost you a thing to say, "wow, i love your dress. you look stunning in it."
---
Debra's site of her work: http://www.debramcclinton.com/
--erika
13 comments:
That is heartbreaking, but you're exactly right about saying nice things to people. So many people (okay, men) I've known act like it's going to shave an inch offa their wieners to eke out a compliment. I plan on being nicer, starting today. You rock, Ms. Erika. I'm glad you're here!
xo.
J>
Yeah, a lot of us go around acting like if we say we love and care about something or someone, a clever kidnapper will suddenly jump out of the bushes and hold it for ransom.
I've been trying to give at least 2 people a genuine compliment each day. This is not only for their benefit, but It makes me feel good too.
Ah, that's the big secret, isn't it? The more I see beauty in you and all those around me, the more I see myself, right? And therefore cut myself slack.
Flaming Iguanas was on my bookshelf during the dark, self-absorbed, angst-ridden melodrama that was art school. It distracted me, made me think, and helped me see that I was not alone.
WRITING the book, FLAMING IGUANAS, helped me to see that i was not alone. like many artists, i always assumed i'd die young, so i wrote like it was the only chance to graffiti all over life's wall. and when i went on the book tour and all of these kindrid spirits showed up and i got all the letters, it blew my mind. i thought it'd just be a "look at the freak!" kind of book. but it wasn't.
i was mad at david rosenthal for miniscule things compared to the magical leap he took to publish me in the first place. after seeing how afraid people are of losing money, i will always be forever grateful to him for taking the chance when people still don't always know what to do with me in these larger industries.
and i think that it affected who i am as surely as childhood molds us into certain folks with issues. i have this audacity now from finding solidarity with enough people. that even when i hear "it's not marketable" about a new idea (as i just heard about my movie last week, and many weeks before), i KNOW i'm right.
that's what enables me to hang in there. i'm not kidding. it gets so lonely and then james loves me and my mother does and my sister waivers, but then i get letters still about my first book and i realize i can't suddenly be all alone again if i wasn't that first time.
and i feel a responsibility as part of our "clan" to keep on going.
so thank you for letting me know. and if your self-absorbed, angst-ridden melodrama that WAS art school is over, bless you. i haven't out run that stuff yet. it was better in art school because we were all at a similar place in our lives. now we're spread apart because of children, gentrification, etc.
now it's amazing that i can still hear from judy mcguire all the way cross country in nyc. i'd be trying to hang out with her at least weekly if i lived back in the city.
she's in the same racket and we're the same age without kids.
it gets a little one-sided running into guy friends who spit on the street and want to shake my hands like a seventeen year old boy.
anyhow, thank you anonymous iguana friend.
i hope that my next couple of works affect people in more good ways.
Debra was the cool and super-hott mom at our kids' school, the mom everyone wanted to hangout with at school functions.
I didn't know about the fame and fortune until much later, when she mentioned she was a photographer and I googled her.
My kid was the one to tell me the news of her death. And none of the kids know the details, that it was suicide, including, I believe, her daughter.
The wall of silence I encountered in trying to find out how she died freaked me out, made me angry, until I found out about the bridge. Then the silence made sense to me: it was a way of shielding a little girl for a little while.
But of course by then I knew what had happened, and my former indignation seemed selfish, which made me upset in an entirely different way.
I can't imagine being is so much pain that I would chose to leave so much behind.
That she was hurting so much and I didn't know, couldn't help, didn't notice...that haunts me. And I know I'm not alone.
We over-protect kids that don't need protecting. I'd bet her daughter had a sense something was wrong with Mom long before anyone else did. Especially the daughter of an artist? Flash forward twenty years, and that girl's in therapy talking about the disconnect of her observations and everyone's game face.
Game faces kill artists and sensitive souls all the time.
I've done enough work on myself and been around enough people screwed up by family secrets, the "protection" drives me crazy. How can you hide the blackness of two sisters who've committed suicide within a few years of each other? And the grandparents ignore your father, all you've got left? If protection were really on the agenda, wouldn't a fortified front and sense of security in a shaken family come first?
And when will she be told? When she's a teen-ager and can handle it? That's when teenagers are least accessible and not jumping on your lap for bedtime stories.
I think it's a long, ongoing conversation that needs to open up over YEARS. starting with "mommy was in a lot of pain."
like divorce causing a lot of kids to take on the blame, this is more of a doozy.
I also suppose that as a writer, i see connections everywhere to everything. it hurts my head. so when the grandparents cruelly ignore tony in print, it's amazingly childish and CRUEL. i don't even know tony. i don't care if they think tony's "bad."
relationships are complex, but the relationship between tony and debra was so long, that has to be honored that they obviously meant something to each other as they even made a child together.
so like him or not, honor that. i'm not yelling at you. i'm seeing CONNECTIONS of secrecy and cruelty and i'm always banging pots and pans in the background yelling "watch out for the truck!" because I worry for the little girl but mostly, as i've already said, mostly i worry for the sisters left behind.
life is not all green dinosaurs. childhood is dark even to the children living it. most of this cutesy stuff is for US adults who want to do it perfectly this time through our kids. kids understand evil and darkness and fear. it's everywhere.
but this is a huge opportunity to catch a poison that has the possibility of catching hold in a family. you can't hide such stuff from kids. they know so much more than us, even if they haven't the words.
i am so angry with debra and all of my friends who've gone away with these horrific suicides. debra's was the most elegant. the others involved plastic bags, heroin, vodka, or gun shots to the dog before oneself.
i'm sad for them and angry. angry at all of us for having such a goddamn nice fucking DAY all the time and not giving each other the space to say "this sucks. i'm on the edge you all."
if we don't give people the space to yell or cry for a hand, what are we to do when things aren't looking so bright for us?
all this "protection" isn't so much protection then, after all. as an artist who's dragged my often bleak soul through every minute of every day, i want friends who know blackness and don't cover me with platitudes.
i'm platituded out.
i suppose i rant back at you because you feeling "selfish" is the handslapping that causes a lot of this.
like a zen koan, the more selfish we are, the more we are there for others. maybe if debra hadn't been a picture of "happiness" for others, and yelled, "mama needs some help, y'all!" she'd be here.
that girl even felt guilty for having such a nice house. she did photography work gratis for a lot of us broke ass artists.
if she'd had herself, had been more selfish, she wouldn't have killed herself, right?
i don't know. but to leave a little girl behind, you've got to feel like the most irrelevant piece of crap to your daughter's future at that point.
but i also think it's an age thing. i think that being around forty and either being disillusioned with what we've done so far and overwhelmed about what we've got to do for the next seemingly endless 30 years gets daunting as hell to me when things seem so hard.
our identities change as women in particular, don't they? that's what's hard for me. and if you don't have yourself in the first place, one wind comes and you're totally screwed.
so pleeeease, as a mother, please don't smack your hand and feel selfish. yes, our society's run amok with the sense of entitlement regarding new red front loading washing machines and massages every thursday, but don't don't don't ever smack your hand for what you're feeling.
it costs so much time and agony to find your way back to yourself once you've covered yourself up with shame.
and that i know if i know anything. so please. if you write to me, to anyone, i want you in all your perceived "ugliness," selfishness. for in being yourself, truly yourself, you're actually SHARING more than a thoughtless "hello how are you i'm fine" meaningless patter.
and i rage because two suicides in one family is a red alarm that something's not being done right. all the "protection" in the world isn't protecting. and if the first sister was the "bad" one (as was i), someone's got to step up and be the release valve next if they don't open up and be truthful.
someone's gotta be the scape goat so no one has to look at themselves, feel their own agony and pain, own nothing. maybe it'll be tony. who knows. i just worry about the sisters carrying two dead bodies around for life now.
the nightmares. i can't imagine.
and most kids of mothers with mental problems or mothers who've committed suicide have so many problems regarding self-blame and feeling like their mothers.
so i hope they build a grounding, safe surface for frankie to be able to feel all that teenage angst without worrying the end is near. those are such crappy times without worrying that suicide is your inheritance.
anyhow, thanks for writing, even if anonymously. but please don't feel selfish. suicide is totally fucked and evil.
as a story teller, people love stories and movies for ideas on how to get through life and hard times. when someone we thought we knew cuts out like that, we wonder if they're onto something when things get so hard.
yes, they were in pain. it's over now. the living must find a way to feel and love and live and be with each other.
you moms and this selfish thing is crazy wrong. you're not just human trampolines for us to jump all over and move on when we're done. and we DO. we all move on and grow up.
i love looking at people and thinking they might be smarter than me and have it all figured out. debra was totally one of those people. and now i'm like, "crap. she didn't even know? she didn't have it all?" cripes. i might have to figure out more on my own and stop complaining and comparing myself?
life really is like high school. those dames never had it figured out, either.
and debra's suicide makes me appreciate vistas a little more. now i'll never be able to cross that fucking bridge without thinking about her. maybe that's what she wanted. the bridge is for romantics. artists are romantics.
and i saw the bay bridge the other night from the embarcadero and thought, "i'm glad i'm not dead or i wouldn't see this."
there's plenty of time for dying later.
you're not fucking selfish, though. it's a hard conundrum. i'm just saying that i see it's bigger than just debra. there's a lot of darkness there and it gets contagious.
okay. repeat after me: "you're so not selfish."
the fact that you THINK of this so much and of her and of your kid and life. you're fucking CONNECTED. to be disconnected and polite is selfish because you don't want to lose face.
i'm half middle-class white. german, to be specific. if you don't think i've had to rage against the stoicism of not shaking things up? i could put my napkin on my lap and keep my elbows off the table, but as someone unable to keep a regular job, my art must be ready to go at all times so i can't hide all my feelings into polite lies.
and as the family ages, i see the fall out from all the quiet cruelty done to each other over decades. the loneliness, the psychotic breaks of a wife, the prescription drugs, the resentment, the "loyalty" that begets bitter years of service...
years later i sat still while they apologized.
the good thing about getting to forty is seeing that at 8 years old, i was already right about so much.
don't understimate frankie's ability to grow and catch on. split twins know someone's missing. siblings know when another is away at an institution somewhere. secrets are ghosts right there rattling chains and make people feel insane.
politeness can be evil. and lazy.
e
wow. i just randomly came across your blog. i am completely astounded, infuriated and taken aback at the amount of inaccurate information that you have about debra mcclinton and her family. debbie was my sister-in-law. i've been a part of debbie's family and debbie's life for 18 years. we spent summers together, christmas's together, had babies together, did crazy things together, shared many secrets, dreams and complaints... which i think is more than she shared with most people. she came home and spent time in NC with us 2 weeks before the bridge and i talked to her the day before. i promise you that you've got a lot of very, very wrong information. being on the east coast has made it hard to connect with her friends and colleagues in SF, and the situation has maybe lent itself to assumptions and rumors and convincing stories that have been offered up by folks who weren't in debra's inner circle or might not have had her best interest at heart... or even by innocent mistake. in any case, i ask you not to pass judgement on debra or her family without knowing the whole story. if you look a little closer you will see that the people who were closest to debbie have written touching memories and stories about her, but have left the intimate details private. those who have made assumptions don't know what she was experiencing. i'm not advocating what she did in any way... i have been left with an emptiness that will never be replaced. my husband was her only true blood sibling (and he was never even mentioned in your blog!) and he is left as an only child in a once vibrant, full family... not even allowed to even spend time with his sister's daughter. my oldest daughter, who has been frankie's best friend since birth, doesn't understand why they haven't seen each other. believe me, you don't have all the information and i'm not sure posting it on the internet for the world to read is how to honor debbie or frankie or debbie's family. i understand that people need to know how a so-called perfect life could go so incredibly wrong, and i would be happy to talk in person to anyone that needs to know a little bit more about debbie. i loved debbie. i love talking about debbie and knowing her. i hate reading judgements made about her and her family.
nancy mcclinton
No judgements. I get angry at secrets and labels and how they hurt and isolate. Blood relations mean nothing regarding what I say, as time and proximity and habits and lessons in a tribe take over.
All I know for sure is that familial systems of dealing with emotions are cultural within a family and don't happen in vacuums. The "bad" kid is often the safety valve for all the unit's emotions. I know. Being the safety valve is exhausting.
And suicide is contagious. You don't have to be related by blood for it to catch on. It becomes a way out. I don't care if Kim was blood or not. The absurdity that it's even a factor scalds me. You can't just point and say, "so and so is not related... AND she was bipolar!"
To write one's connection off is cheating yourself out of seeing the grey truth.
So how can I judge? I yell. I scream. Your family unit is not isolated. Debra was an artist. We are not bound by blood. Screw blood.
I'm tired of wild childs dying by their own hand. To me it's more tragic that none of the women I've known should be written off as bipolar or any of that. They were each sensitive and didn't know how to deal with the sudden overwhelming blackness that apparently consumed their present so much, they could no longer imagine a future.
Suicide burns not only your family but anyone who knows the dead. I scream because the romance of it is a LIE.
I sought out photos of gunshot wounds to the head to see how Laura Trent died. I saw car accident photos to imagine the beautiful way Melinda Moore thought she should go; I read about jumps to imagine the truth of what Debra thought her body deserved.
I feel more love for the remaining LIVING people in pain that I know and want to make myself available to go, "No! Call me! Love yourself just enough to hold off the inevitable rot of death! There's PLENTY of time for dying LATER!"
If you are trying to yell at me because you feel that I have outed you, you are yelling at the wrong girl. I make my often meagre living trying to courageously face what's most embarrassing and fearful.
I take my own family with me, and somehow they still love me for it. It's the only way I can live, is to yell and cry out warnings and watch and love.
There is anger in suicide. Where is the anger? The rage at such a waste of amazing talent and beauty and love and life.
Of course nice things are said, but it's a tragedy and I'm so angry, I yell for the living.
Dear Nancy McClinton, I appreciate your taking the time to write and give you a nod for using your real name. But please, hear what I'm saying and don't sweat the small stuff. The details and the blood doesn't matter.
San Francisco attracts a lot of superfreak women and sometimes we haven't a clue how to teeter into the second halves of our lives. We're not so cute anymore. It's a young girl's game. And the art thing? Whoa. What a hard game for complex women. That's why Debra had to do work under "Frankie" and "Debra" -- so's not to confuse folks by being too complicated and diverse.
There's a darkness to me and Debra always said I reminded her of her sister (blood or not, who cares? she felt she was sisterly enough to call her that. i'm not throwing down with any of you to prove anything about knowledge of who's related to whom).
but she always said i reminded her of her sister. the rapid weight changes. her emotional nature, too, i guess. and i've been labeled all of my life since a kid, and can't write off her suicide as not counting because "she was bipolar anyway." geez!
and when her sister killed herself, i felt myself being pulled down, too. like, "oh, does she know something i don't know? am i wasting my time?"
so thank you for writing.
i'm used to outing myself and my family and others in my books, but no one DIES because of it. in fact, things get aired, games stop being played, and we're all a little bit closer for it.
i wish the best for you and your family and i really hope that frankie's told the truth and given the tools to handle emotions. heck, i hope everyone learns something about themselves.
it never really happens in a vacuum. we all have parts in a system that cause things. it's not blame, it's catching it so that we can HEAL and do things differently.
that's all life is about, isn't it? getting better at loving each other?
debra's gone. her story's over. we can pretty it up and ignore what took her out of some imagined "respect." she doesn't care. it's for our own avoidance that we don't delve.
as one who's just decided to come out of the darkness, by reading about suicides and looking at graphic pictures, i finally snapped back into life.
And I've learned that it's the damn "stories" that kill us and help us. we just have to be careful which inspire or destroy.
But I'm trying to live in the Now and not get too attached to stories.
They can become lies and coverups.
So be careful. Don't sweat my details. I'm not a newsgirl. I just want others who're having a hard time to live. Details? Hell, i don't even have to KNOW anyone if they want to call me.
Best of luck and I wish peace and growth and love to you and yours. For real...
Thanks for writing and your time.
Please feel free to get angry with me at any time. I can handle it and it's good for you. It's good for any of us who's lost someone to suicide. It's messed up.
--Erika
hi... well, i have to respond once again. first of all, my comments were based on your first posting about deb. you asked why did she jump off a bridge?? that's what you wanted to know. you wanted to understand her. i was trying to offer another viewpoint from the inside. alongside my sadness and yearning for her to come back, i know her reasons for ending her life. we talked and talked about her struggles and dead-ends as she saw it-in the days and weeks before she jumped. of course we said and did everything we could to support her and encourage her and give her options and help her to believe that things could work out, but she was already in her place. i would give the world to have one more chance...
secondly, my anger, although not directed at you... i'm sorry if my passion and my pride in my family came across that way... my anger was directed at the accusations of evil and cruelty and cover-ups about debra's parents. although i could go on and on, i will not stoop to the shameful level of feeling forced to defend the integrity, wholeness and genuine goodness of our family against these hurtful words. and why? you say petty and lack of character... debbie would be so incredibly hurt by that. she was so proud of her family and there is so much love and support and goodness...
on top of all of the disabling pain and suffering we have all endured, why throw daggers when you don't know? here is an important truth:
debra chose to leave tony.
here is another truth:
any stories or explanations or lack of explanations that have been given to frankie come directly from her father. by his choice, debra's family is not allowed to speak with her or interact with her without his direct supervision.
here is one more truth, albeit petty for sure:
tony was responsible for the SF obituary.
i have no secrets. just very valid opinions based on facts, but i will try to not throw daggers publicly. like you said, debbie's story is over. however, her legacy as an artist and a mother are not over. and her daughter's life is just beginning. will she ever know the truths about her mother? will she ever know what an amazing talent and beautiful spirit she was?
next, i completely, agree that it is absurd to consider kim as not being blood related. that was not my intention at all. kim was my sister too. i only excluded her because sadly, or lucky for her, she is not here to experience this loss. what i meant was, when you worry, worry for her brother, worry for her nieces, worry for all of her little cousins who were left behind... those who she used to come home to, who she spent vacations with, who she had family dinners with and who she stayed up all hours of the night giggling with and now she's just gone... in addition to her half sisters. i know we're not isolated. i know that many other people matter too. i know that it is almost unfathomable to consider all of the walks of life that debbie touched and the folks who are grieving her absence. and i do understand the seriousness and contagious element of suicide. we are not creating a "blackness" to cover anything up. we are rebuilding our family and living with our realities and raising our daughters in a loving, supportive atmosphere without fear. i wish and wish and wish that frankie could be a part of it.
lastly, YES! you do have an uncanny resemblance to kim! i thought that from the first picture on your blog. weird. kim and i were very close....
did you model for deb? i think you are in a photograph hanging in her mother's house.
thank you for your passion and your voice in remembering deb.
Yes, Debra used to take photos of me for magazines, and then we played around on our own.
I really can't and don't want to speak of the details of the finger pointing that ALWAYS seems to happen after many deaths, but goes wild like a seizure after suicides.
There's no point in trying to win on specific points because arguments seem to be a cover up for all the fear and panic and heart break, so I don't listen to the details anymore. It's a lot of outer chaos.
So again, I'm not talking the small stuff: it's a general warning I'm ranting about so that our women can stop killing themselves as a last resort. The more beautiful and young you are, the more "romantic" it seems.
I rant so that in the intensity of our feelings, we might try and figure everyone's as decent as we think we are, remember our BETTER SELVES and deal with care/kindness with who's left--whether we're speaking about sisters, cousins, friends, daughters, parents.
I don't want to be a part of finger pointing. I'm raising my fists and shaking them and trying to go beyond the initial sadness, to UNDERSTANDING.
I don't know the reasons Debra jumped. I think it's a rhetorical question for me because no matter how we FEEL, to say being 39, gorgeous, talented, funny, and sweet, a new mother, and a HOMEOWNER in San Francisco looks like having it ALL.
Something has gone seriously awry when one can have even half that much and think they've hit a dead end at 39. There's no sufficient answer, is there?
So it's rhetorical. And I wouldn't even believe Debra's answer, as we make up stories during certain moments. Stories which change over time, depending on the focus.
Regarding Tony, I've been around enough long-term relationships, as well as in them, to understand that living the art life and growing and changing with someone gives even a former partner a place of high honor for putting up with the ups and downs. And if you have a KID with such a person, and had been with them for so long, it's tragic to treat them so casually.
Even when we pretend they meant nothing, in order to extricate ourselves from them, we usually fall at their feet grateful at some point in the future and thank them profusely.
If there's a momentary bad patch, we might forget the investment of time two people had. We know nothing about what they truly meant to each other. Maybe nothing.
It doesn't MATTER. What do we lose by assuming there's love? None of us are so easily summed up.
But I want to learn the seemingly elusive tools and thought process that'd help myself and others from feeling so hopeless.
I'm warning that we're ALL connected by each other's actions. Whether it's on a macro level of spewing pollution and ingesting it later, or micro level of saying "have a nice day" and feeling calmer.
And if our emotional skills are lacking, maybe we try something new that might allow others to learn that feeling intensely doesn't have to end in suicide.
THAT is what I worry most about in her immediate family. We artists are professionals at having tantrums and sad feelings, and reaching out to each other.
It's when we isolate ourselves too long, as we often must, that we're eyeing the gun funny.
But two in one family? I can't even imagine the agony and the questions chasing themselves around my head as I try to fall asleep at night.
So Nancy, for your family and the superfreak girls I know, I'm hoping for an ability to have, and not fear, deep intense feelings. To not feel controlled by them.
Many of us who laugh so loudly, oh, the flip side is really bad. And we try and avoid it because we think it'll control us.
I really hope for peace. We need to support our women who try and do and be so much, and falter and don't know how to wait it out. We need them for ourselves.
Debra, and others like her, take us forward. They affect us more than they realize. (and we, them)
I know I'm repeating myself horribly, for I'm not saying more than one or two basic things.
But I have finally learned that it's these "stories" that slaughter us--in many aspects of our lives.
That's why I don't need to know the specifics of any Debra stories. They change depending on perspective, and they're irrelevant now. They are distractions. Stories. We try to argue to win the right to the most accepted story for history, posterity.
We tell ourselves stories regarding our own past and futures, and it dictates whether we think we're victims or not. Or entitled to the universe.
If we stop, and focus on ONE thing... a sound of a bell, and feel our breathing for a moment, and stop labeling ourselves and stories, and just be, it's so much easier to make it through the moment.
That's new for me. I craft and write stories. They pin me to the ground in despair. I wanted to know Debra's story-- her final chapter. I had her with the beauty, the house, etc. and the ending didn't line up.
Of course it didn't! She's not a story. I don't want to know anything more. Anything, even out of her own mouth, verges on gossip. It's just a piece of the reality.
Are your own perceptions as a child the same ones you'd have today? No. They change. That's why anything Debra would say couldn't be gospel.
Just that her BAD stories/beliefs got the best of her.
None of us had ever told her how to let them pass over us like dark clouds, while we stayed firm.
Heck, none of us KNEW. I didn't know until she died that I'd BETTER figure out a way to handle my own intensity or I'd follow her. So that's what she's given me. The awareness that it's all so fragile, especially in our OWN hands. Who knew? We're all worried about outside death.
But we're always our worst enemies, aren't we?
And don't worry about defending your family. As one who's been slinging my beliefs out in the open with my real name, it's best to ignore critics or tell 'em to simply screw off. Better uses of time. Life is sooo short, isn't it?
Thanks for writing back.
And I don't think your family is some creepy, abusive anything. Families have historical tendencies which may need to evolve.
I'm half German and the stoicism used to cause me to curl up in the fetal position and run around breaking windows for some reactions.
I'm not saying anyone's right or wrong, really. I'm saying, "pleeease, take care of the ones who're left. special attention must be paid." and i'm trying to do my part over here with the superfreak girls. we're not taking good care of each other just yet.
I send you a crushing Puerto Rican hug,
Erika
Dear Nancy,
I've gotta say that it's been really nice hearing from you. Your name alone makes me feel a little more connected to Debra, and days after your first comment on this clog, and thoughts of you and Debra pop into my head while I'm in the midst of doing something else and I smile.
When I know someone through art and work, and amnot connected through holidays but isolated collaborations, it's hard to suddenly be cut off through death with no one else who really knows the person.
When a couple of other friends had committed suicide, we had friends in common to talk to and feel closer.
But a few others no one knows so I tend to keep my feelings to myself.
So I thank you for talking to me and arguing with me because it's a connection to Debra and I miss her terribly. I'm so angry and sad that she became so elusive after her sister died.
She was my favorite photographer ever, and I wanted her to be the director of photography for my film and learn how to go from still to moving pictures. I just loved working with her.
She WAS all that. that's the problem. you just couldn't begrudge her anything she had. you wanted her to have more because she was generous and wonderfully imperfect enough to be human.
I'm so mad at such a waste and all that pain she's caused.
anyhow, i'm up late working and her death is finally making me realize my part as an artist in the world is to reach out and connect and be there for others who might be teetering.
thank you for reaching out to me and acknowledging me. THAT is part of all new echoes we must put out there to drown out the blackness of suicides.
THIS is what i'm talking about. taking some kind of actions to counter the black dogs.
actions done in a spirit of love and peace and forgiveness. i can't control anyone but myself so i'll try and not be a debra and catch other debras. not by rescuing and being on a hotline, but by trying to be open about my own moments in hell and ways i've found to BEAT it!
thank you again for extending whatever tenuous connection i still had with debra. i try to buck up, grit my teeth and move on out of anger like "how dare you, debra!", but you remind me just how sad and tragic i feel about it.
some people take and consume and hurt and stick around doing that for years. and we NEED people like debra.
that's why i'm obsessed now with finding out how to be open hearted and still strong. so i can pass it on.
thanks again and i'm so sorry for you all and the monsters you now have whenever anything gets shaky there for a moment.
x
erika
Post a Comment