During my years as a therapist I occasionally ran across a client who welcomed illness. Perhaps it served as an avoidance of something they saw as a worse fate or perhaps a way they could get their emotional needs met. While I understood the function of illness in those lives it never attracted me as a personal strategy. No, instead I employed the opposite strategy. Even when I felt bad I forged ahead. Being sick meant weakness or punishment for a wrong-doing.
Recently I endured a period of illness that I couldn’t ignore. I decided to find a way to utilize the recovery time productively. I went on a mind-boggling reading marathon. Throughout much of that period I enjoyed a one-book-a-day regimen. Daily I experienced a new world, a new genre, a new protagonist. Each story assisted me in my recovery in some small way. I am reminded of the importance of good writing and good story.
My marathon began with James Patterson and his fictional tale called 2nd Chance. I was attracted to that story because of its setting: San Francisco. Living in the Bay Area would make it more interesting. Now James Patterson is an industry, a formula writer, he has found the formula that sells books and made himself one of the richest writers around. I enjoyed the story and the unexpected twists and turns. Unexpectedly the story’s final scene takes place on the Stanford University Campus which I visited two weeks prior. The bad guy finds his way to the top of the Hoover Tower and begins shooting at people on the ground. When visiting the campus there were no bullets flying and I didn’t go up the Tower but did take photos there and elsewhere. It is still mind-boggling to me that I would find myself on enemy territory. Being a Washington Husky, Stanford was always the enemy. Admittedly they do have a nice Mission style campus but it doesn’t come close to the University of Washington Campus with its Gothic architecture and views of Mt. Rainier.
Next I chose Everyman by Phillip Roth. This is a story I might have avoided if I’d known the subject matter but the author is one of my favorites. Everyman takes place in New York City and New Jersey, two places I became familiar with before moving to Miami and then the Bay Area. Basically, through the story of one man the reader experiences the demise of every man and woman. Retirement from his valued professional life, loss of friends, family and place and ultimately his health. We follow him to his grave. These are all issues we must deal with in our lives. They are inevitable and are current challenges for me: Retirement, isolation, illness and mortality. Mind-boggling!
I needed something more up-lifting so I turned to an old faithful: Carl Hiaasen. He writes zany, crazy, and sometimes mindless stories set primarily in South Florida. I chose Basket Case. It was an okay read but not quite what I needed. The protagonist in this story sits at the supposed bottom of the newspaper hierarchy. He writes obituaries. Entertaining at least but not exactly what a sick person wants to read.
These were followed by a mind-boggling list of titles:
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier; Charming Billy by Alice McDermott; Aleph by Paulo Coelho; A Morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke; Thin Air by Robert B. Parker; The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King.
I could go on. There were more that aren’t coming to mind. The experts say that the more you read the better you will write. After this mind-boggling reading marathon I should improve my writing at least enough to make it to the half-way mark. At the very least, I found a way to utilize a period of illness, now behind me, in a productive way.
Stan the Man
