Riding the stream to hope and healing
Jun. 24—Started to write a column about love, decided I hated it, and now I'm staring down a deadline, so I guess it's time for another stream-of-consciousness column ...
I'm sitting here sipping on a cappuccino, which makes me feel fancy. Missie's son got her a cappuccino maker for Mother's Day, and it only took me a handful of attempts to learn how to make one proper. I normally drink straight black coffee, and only one cup, because one cup will do me.
Speaking of coffee, "The Green Mile" is one of those movies that frequently shows on cable, and if I come across it, I'm gonna stop flipping channels and watch. If you've not seen it, Michael Clarke Duncan plays a death row inmate named John Coffey — "Like the drink, only not spelled the same," he tells people. Coffey is a very large black man who possesses the ability to heal people, but he's in jail for (supposedly) murdering two young white girls. (This is set in 1930s Louisiana.)
The film is based on a Stephen King novel and directed by Frank Darabont. King and Darabont were also responsible for my favorite movie of all time, "The Shawshank Redemption" — also a prison movie involving a wrongfully accused protagonist. For my money, it's the greatest love story to ever grace the silver screen, about two inmates who become best friends and manage to hold on to hope despite their seemingly hopeless situation.
"Get busy living, or get busy dying," Andy Dufresne says at one point, and it's a line that has resonated with me in recent years. My mental health has improved greatly the last couple of years; I can't even remember the last time I thought about making myself unalive. Many factors have contributed to my healing, including art in its various forms.
That's what great art can do, be it a movie or a song or a painting. It can force you to look inside yourself and confront your reality, and beyond that, deal with your reality in a healthy way. Music has been especially important to me in that regard. Sad songs, for instance, help me process my own pain. But I've noticed lately that I don't listen to near as many melancholy tunes as I once did.
I've been listening to a lot of Jack White, Beastie Boys, Rush, NF and Harvey Danger lately. NF's new album, "Hope," has been especially relevant to me. It's just as introspective as his earlier work, but it also marks a shift in his perspective on the trauma that has fueled so much of his music. In the song "Happy," he says, "Yeah, been this way so long, it feels like something's off when I'm not depressed."
I'm the same way. When I start feeling good about myself and my life, I get paranoid, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm working on correcting that flaw.
It appears this column wasn't really stream of consciousness, and I swear I had no idea where it was going when I started writing it. And it turns out to have been about love, I suppose — loving myself. That's a daily struggle, but I strive on, hoping more good days lie ahead.
As Andy Dufresne said, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."
BRAD LOCKE is senior sports writer for the Daily Journal. Contact him on Twitter @bradlocke or via email at brad.locke@journalinc.com
