“If my life wasn’t funny, it’d just be true. And that’s unacceptable.”
What is “true?” Does “true” signify “real?” If my life wasn’t funny, it’d just be “real?” Perhaps comedy provides comfort. Life viewed with humor provides safety from life’s hazards and hurts. Life is fragile. Handle with wit. Do not bend, package will break. Human heart inside. If we surround ourselves in self-irony, maybe we can bounce rather than break. If our lives are oil paintings, trying to smear the image will change nothing – we’ll only leave fingerprints on the canvas. However, if life is depicted in pastels, smudges are encouraged. The line between fact and fiction is purposely unclear. If a writer uses their life as fodder, as Carrie Fisher does, then perhaps life becomes easier to handle.
Carrie (kăr’ē)
There are various theories on the origins of those surnames, including the Gaelic derivation given here. Others include the Welsh phrase caer rhiw, meaning “hill fort,’” another Gaelic source, ciar, meaning ”dark-complected,” evolving into the Latin carriarus, an occupational surname for those who moved goods from place to place. The source language is Gaelic and the meaning is love.
Would a writer by any other name be as witty? As someone with bipolar II, Carrie has two moods, which she has named Roy and Pam. As she explains, “Roy is rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood. Pam is sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs. One mood is the meal, the next mood is the check. Roy decorated my house, Pam has to live in it.” Carrie was diagnosed a manic depressive after an accidental overdose in 1984, the year I was born.
When I was younger, still under the height of double-digits, I named my alter-ego, Smachel. If someone took my sister’s Barbie, it was Smachel. If someone withheld the truth from my parents, it was Smachel. Even now Smachel makes awful messes Rachel has to clean up. Smachel drinks too much, but Rachel has the hangover. Smachel clutters her room, but Rachel has to live in it. One can only imagine what kind of tomfoolery and lollygags Roy and Smachel would create together.
15 February, 2009
Last night, I dreamt of Carrie Fisher. It was not the first time she has cameoed in my dreams as we do tend to bond in my subconscious. Usually, she and I bump into each other at a park or we realize we’re vacationing at the same resort. Last night, we met at the College Hill Bookstore on Thayer Street on the east side of Providence. At the same time, we both reached for The Portable Dorothy Parker. After we recognized each others’ hands, we began to exchange our usual greetings; “Hi, how are you? How’s your family? How’s your medication treating you? Have you written anything new?”
We continued this conversation at a nearby café. Carrie selected a table while I picked up our drinks. I tell her the intimate atmosphere draped in flesh tones reminds me of a womb.
“Yeah,” Carrie said, “when we walk outta here a doctor should spank us. Or, at least me anyway.”
Spanking leads us to the internet and Carrie tells me about the people she has met in the gardening chat rooms for the over-forty crowd. For a while, we tried to think up other meanings for the instant messaging acronym “LOL.” Carrie came up with “loud old ladies”, “lewd ovulating llamas”, and “lucid oscillating lawyers” while “Leia over load” was all I could muster. Carrie excused herself to the restroom while I started to write a poem on a napkin, which I now cannot remember.
Carrie returned with the kitchen staff singing “Happy Birthday” to me. Before I blew out the candle atop a plate of tiramisu, Carrie told me to make a wish. I told her I didn’t know what to wish for and she reassured me that if I thought of something later, it would still count.
Our conversation picked up again after I told her if I had been born a boy, my parents were going to name me Benjamin Joseph, but call me B.J. “Luckily,” I said, “I was named after Rachel Ward from The Thorn Birds miniseries. You know you’re parents really love you when they name you after the woman who’s character slept with a priest and is now starring in a TV movie entitled, My Stepson, My Lover.” Carrie pointed out our names are the same culturally, but reversed; “Because Rachel is a Jewish name, like Fisher. And Carrie has a Gaelic origin, like Smith.”
********************
I am trying to remember this poem,
Incited during slumber,
Written on a napkin,
Now in a bottle drifts,
Between wistful ocean peaks.
Float I,
On piece of broken ship,
Shattered shard,
Remnant of a dream.
The sleepy sea keeps me
Ever a wave away
And so stay I will.
Salt-water lungs filled,
Pruned skin raw,
Ever stretched,
No matter how thin,
Grappling for that napkin.
A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away…
As we walked back to my car, I told Carrie I’ve finally thought of a wish – I want her to tell me a story.
“OK,” she said. “Here’s a story that’s never been told. In a galaxy not so far away, there was a princess and a musician. They were married, but it couldn’t and it didn’t last. There were two flowers where one should have been a gardener. They were both left in the sun. Wilting. Anyway, before they separated, the princess was pregnant and she thought, ‘Great. This baby will keep us together.’ But, as life would have it, the princess lost the baby.”
I unlocked the passenger door of my car so Carrie could get in, but she didn’t.
“It turns out, though,” she continued, “a baby was born later that year, miles and miles away from the princess and the musician, who returned to their natural coasts. It worked out well for the baby, for all of them. Later that year the princess ended up in rehab because she accidentally took too many pills. But, the beautiful baby girl was and is like her would-be mother. Short, dark hair, dark eyes, neurotic, medicated, addicted. And, you know, to paraphrase the musician, ‘The would-be mother and child reunion is only a motion away.’”
I stared straight at her, trying to see the reflection of my eyes in hers. She pushed my hair out of my face, her lip trembling. She embraced me, and I let her cry on my shoulder.
Old Friends
After I woke from my dream and got out of bed, I went to my bookcase. I pulled out Carrie’s novel, The Best Awful, turned to the last page, and read aloud:
“Most things were ultimately manageable if you went at them the right way. Even if they started out all wrong and hopeless and wrapped so tight around you that you just can’t breathe. Even the things you thought you could never get over or get through, those hurts you knew would never heal. Those visions that troubled your sleep. All that quieted, and ceased to pull at you, if you wanted it to badly enough, if you were willing to outlast your difficulties. Then you can rest in the easy, pleasing way someone feels about you, breathing in what’s best in each other, breathing out what’s not.”
Closing the book, I thought, That is so true.
A Spy in the House of We by Rachel J. Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
