MadameBastet-firing-neurons

MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Dispatches from the Comfort Zone and Why I Love Anderson Cooper

Last week I received Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival" in the mail from Amazon.com. I read it in two hours. In his beautiful book interweaving his own life with the wars and disasters he's covered over the years, Anderson put into words what I have been feeling about my life for the last decade. Odd, because we have led completely different lives. He was born to American royalty; an iconic mother....a glittering life of famous names and places in New York. I grew up in an upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles; the only connections we have is that we were both born in 1967, we both went to private, expensive universities, we both have a brother, and we've both experienced the suicide of a close family member. We both lost our fathers suddenly; Anderson at the terribly early age of 10; I at the more reasonable, but still somehow almost unbearable age of 28. Now Anderson is famous, and talented, and probably the only journalist and news anchor I trust anymore. I am a teacher, unknown but not dissatisfied with that - I think fame would drive me insane. He's adored by thousands - I'm adored by two cats. Actually, I had to make up that last line. I think the cats just tolerate me.

On page 15, Anderson writes: "Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be, if the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled together by the will to survive."

No human being on earth has ever spoken the words my soul has been trying to find for years and years. Therapy, pills, ghosts, tears, my own writing - nothing worked to articulate the sense that perhaps my life would've been different had I not fallen so ill in 1994, and lost so many years to illness. What of my father's cruel and untimely death? What would things be like now? Who would I be if I did not fight pain and fatigue daily? Would I have done more? Less? Does it really matter? No. Because I'll never know. I don't really torture myself too much with the questions anymore; it's pointless. I have made more peace with my dad than with my body; my body reminds me everyday that it will battle me day after day. That's a tough war to walk away from. So although I'm sure Anderson Cooper wrote that for far different reasons, perhaps they are not so different in the end; perhaps they are all about loss, and just for those few sentences I am eternally grateful.

Anderson Cooper and I have had a long and strange relationship, although of course, he doesn't know it. Hee. And he doesn't have to worry, I am not, as he called them so politely on Larry King tonight, one of those 'highly motivated people' (aka stalkers) that thinks I know him, or have a personal relationship with him, or will, and I'm not planning on taking long walks past his apartment in New York. I'm not going to sit outside CNN waiting for him to walk out. That's just craziness; although poor guy, apparently he's been dealing with it more and more, and with the publication of this book, I fear he is going to simply become more and more trapped by his success. Sad.

I remember first seeing Anderson many years ago - maybe a decade or so, thanks to my ever-present insomnia. I believe it was just before my dad died; I'd wake up at odd hours of the night and turn on the TV. I'd watch ABC News at like 3am and 4am and there was Anderson, so amazingly young! I guess I was young too, as we are the same age. But I remember with such clarity that he seemed older than his years; I don't even recall if his hair had gone completely gray yet. He just posessed a certain intellectual and emotional weight - I knew absolutely nothing about him, his family, his past. I didn't even think he was particularly handsome or anything, and yet something inexplicable drew me to him during those wee morning hours. Perhaps I wondered, "Wow, who's the poor guy who got stuck with this gig?"

Then my father died; death by severe lead poisoning. Ba- dum dum. Thank you, I'll be here all week. And at some point in the insane numbness of grief, when I was reaching out to anyone and anything for comfort, for survival, like a drowning woman clutching at a life raft, I came across a book written by Gloria Vanderbilt called "A Mother's Story" which was about the suicide of her young son Carter, 23, in the summer of 1988. I'd read every book I could find on grief and especially suicide, so naturally I read this one too. Despite the difference in our circumstances; she had lost a child who'd leapt from a building right in front of her and I'd lost a parent who'd I'd found dead in his apartment, her book was one of the most comforting I'd read. I loved reading about Carter; I ached for him, and for Gloria. All I ever knew about Gloria was the 'poor little rich girl' story, that she was a socialite, and had designed some jeans in the late 1970's that were extremely popular when I was in middle school. I never bought a pair.

I remember the cover of that book so clearly - it was a picture of Carter - a full-faced but very handsome young man, and I was so sad for her. I'd worked in the suicide survivors group with so many parents who'd lost children to suicide and I always found them the hardest to work with. Perhaps because I did not have children of my own; perhaps because I felt my grief could never measure the anguish of losing a child, especially in such a horrible manner as suicide. We were not supposed to 'compare' grief; but when you see a parent mourn a child, it is as if everything in the universe has gone topsy-turvy, upside down, inside out. It is beyond wrong. Parents, as it is said, are not supposed to outlive their own children. Parents are not supposed to watch their children leap off balconies 14 floors up; parents are not supposed to watch their 13 year old child immoliate himself in the backyard. So many people asked me, "How can you do that group every week? Doesn't it depress you?" On the contrary.

After Carter committed suicide, Anderson graduated college, and said he felt the need to go where people were experiencing loss; to see how they survived. He needed to be around loss; he was still reeling from his own loss. That is exactly how I felt. How could I /not/ be around other survivors? They were my people, my brothers and sisters. Only /they/ could truly understand what I was feeling. I now belonged to a special group; obviously a group I never would've willingly joined - but I'd crossed the Rubicon, so to speak. I could not go back. My life was forever divided. I needed to tell my story, over and over and over. And I needed to hear others' stories and I needed to tell them in any way I could, Byou will surviveB! I threw myself in the trenches for four years.

What I find odd now about Gloria's book is that perhaps she mentioned Anderson; I honestly don't recall connecting them though. And yet somehow, some years down the line, I finally understood that Anderson Cooper was the son of Gloria Vanderbilt and her last husband, Wyatt Cooper. I found it mildly interesting but not overwhelmingly so.

Now with the publication of Anderson's book (which is currently at the #1 spot on Amazon) everyone who's interested will know. Gloria is 82 years old, and has led an amazingly fascinating life - not the least that she had Anderson at 43 and she's still going strong! And yet I'm more interested in Anderson's passion with keeping the dead alive, with exposing the horrors that most of us turn away from, telling the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves anymore - Rwanda, Serbia, Haiti, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo - talking openly about his brother's suicide, and daring to show compassion, and emotion - even on air.

I will never forget his coverage of Katrina, when he was talking to some moronic Senator who was rambling on and on, thanking politician after politician, and Anderson interrupted her and basically said 'do you realize while politicians are thanking each other, bodies are decomposing in the streets...I saw a woman who's been lying out in the sun for two days being eat by rats and people are angry...do you get that people are angry about this???'

It was a high point in journalism if you ask me. I don't give a shit if he wasn't retaining his 'objectivity' - someone had to finally call those monstrous politicians on their B.S. and glad-handling. People were rotting in the streets, and they were thanking each other for a job well done. Were they blind? Are they sociopaths? Where were their consciences? Well, we now know how Katrina and the aftermath turned out. A horror show. It can't happen here. Oh yes it can. A national tragedy. Anderson's voice cracked during his confrontation of this woman, and I thought, Jesus, finally! Finally, someone who is NOT afraid to tell the truth! To say what we all want to say! To speak truth to power. To cut through the bullshit. He was, and is my hero, just for that one moment. If he never did another thing in his life, that would be enough.

From watching Anderson on about a billion interviews this week, reading his work in Details magazine, reading his book, his blog and watching his show on CNN, I see a lot of myself in him. Perhaps I am projecting. I'm sure a million others feel some mystical connection to him and just know he's their soul mate. I don't feel that way; I don't know him, I don't feel mystically connected to him. I just listen to him speak, and I hear my thoughts about suicide and loss said aloud, and it feels so good to have someone talk about it, without fear, without shame. I am not really allowed to talk about my Dad anymore in my family. I can't talk about his death - which is fine, because I'm all talked out on that subject. I lost the need for answers to my questions years ago. However, even when I talk about my dad's life - the good person he was, the great dad he was, the good things he did I manage to upset my mother and brother. This infuriates me as I feel I worked so fucking hard for so many years to deal with my grief and loss in as healthy a way as possible, and to integrate my dad's death into my life, and to learn to focus more ON HIS LIFE than on how he died. That is no easy task with suicide. I feel sorry for my mom and my brother. I think they are emotionally stunted and choose to live in denial. They have chosen to bury my father, literally and figuratively, forever. They have lied to people about how he died; I refuse to do that. I find that reprehensible. What does that say about my dad, about suicide, about mental illness, depression - what does that say about my brother? Is he ashamed? Of what? He did nothing wrong. If people don't like the truth, they can move on. I am different than my mom and brother. I have always been accused of being too sensitive. Overly sensitive. I cry too easily. I see the cover of Time magazine in the market with victims of Darfur on the cover and my eyes well up. I plead guilty. I am highly sensitive. Sometimes I have to purposely back off and become cynical, use black humour - whatever - to keep me from falling totally apart. I always said I'd rather be too sensitive than not sensitive enough.

It helps to hear someone my age say that we don't talk about loss in America. Someone people look up to and respect. Because we don't talk about loss; we don't want to read about anything but Paris Hilton and the latest plastic surgery innovations. We are more afraid of death and dying than any culture I've ever seen. We're a spoiled, insulated culture. How lucky we are.

We still stigmatize people who take their lives. Sometimes I think we are downright medieval. When my brother's best childhood friend shot and killed himself in his house several years ago, some fucking idiot asked his sister if he was going to be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Good God, what century is this? Even the Church, which I detest, finally came around at Vatican II and stated that suicide is a result of mental illness - it's not some sin where the person's going to Hell to burn for all eternity.

Anyway, I'm glad there's an Anderson Cooper out there. I'm grateful. I've gotten so cynical I don't trust anyone anymore. The government, the media - fuck 'em all. However, when I finished his book, I had a little hope. Hope that there is someone out there who truly cares. Anderson goes back to a time when journalists had integrity and honor. He has class, and compassion. He cares. I believe that.

The inevitable backlash will begin, I know. Hell, the poor guy has been raked over the coals for years over his sexual orientation. Straight? Gay? Why won't he just admit he's gay? He has a responsibility to come out for the gay community! Uh, no he doesn't actually. What the hell does it matter what his sexual orientation is? How does this affect his work? How does this impact our lives? Our sexually/celebrity obsessed pathetic lives. It makes no difference to me. I don't see a straight man, a gay man, a handsome man, an ugly man. I see a man who has suffered deeply in his life, despite all the trappings of money, fame, success. I see a man who has made a difference in the lives of thousands. I see a peer I can be proud of. I see a man who is not living a half life - but the fullest life possible. I see an inspiration, a hero. And I don't believe there are very many heroes left anymore.