Yesterday I watched the documentary about Andrea Gibson, the non-binary poet who was the Poet Laureate of Colorado in 2023 and who died of ovarian cancer in July of this year. The documentary was directed by Ryan White, who I don't know, and produced by Tig Notaro, who I love. Notaro's tv show One Mississippi was about her mother dying while Notaro was still recovering from severe health issues, and yet it is still billed as a comedy.
I did not love Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking. I'm almost unwilling to admit that, so many people thought it was a masterpiece (I see I was too chicken to even rate it on Goodreads). I didn't think it was bad, but it didn't get under my skin the way When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi or The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs did. I don't think it's any secret that I tend to treat every subject, even very serious ones, with some kind of humour, which is true of my wider family as well. I realize that humour can be a deflection technique, but I don't think that's all it is. I have trouble remembering quotes, but one by Martin Amis sticks in my head: "A writer is someone who is harassed to the point of insanity by first principles." I don't even think this just applies to writers, but to anyone who stops now and then and thinks about things. Everything in the world, everything about human life, is so strange if you think about it all the way down. And from the time we're very young, we all know that at some point we're going to die. And, like Eleanor Shellstrop says in The Good Place, because of this, "we're all a little bit sad, all the time". But also there is snow, and sky, and your kid saying smushmallow instead of marshmallow, and the fact that you look really dumb in hats, and people falling into shopping mall fountains, and it's impossible to maintain that sadness.
So I ugly cried through a lot of the Andrea Gibson documentary, predictably. And, a little less predictably but not totally, I also snort-laughed and cry-laughed. It is physically painful to watch the point where the scan results are positive, and it looks like they might live, because we know she didn't. It's equally painful to see the point when they realize the cancer is everywhere. And then there is beauty and hilarity and profanity, and the quote I mentioned on Jenny's post yesterday, that "happiness became easier to find when I realized I didn't have forever to find it."
12 comments:
Frequency illusion - I just saw One Mississippi listed on CBC Gem today and it was entirely new to me, and now I have also seen it in your blog post today. I never know what to think when this happens.
That "anonymous" was me. I hate it when I forget to use the dropdown to enter my name ...
I once did an exercise where you look down a long list of values to identify your five or six core values and "humor" was one of them and I remember thinking, can humor even be a value? But then I asked my husband to do it, and without even seeing the list he identified humor as his most important value. I asked him about it, and he said that he wanted to approach pretty much everything in life with humor, that is just how he wanted to interact with the world. And being with him for over 17 years, I know now what he means by that, and I'm so grateful that I ended up with someone who claims humor as his core value. Anyway, what you said about humor made me think about that.
Now I want to watch that special, but also I don't want to because I don't want to ugly cry. Which reminds me of the time I flew to see my friend when my second kid was just six months old and on the plane I had to pick between Malificent and The Fault in Our Stars. And I had read the Fault in Our Stars and I knew I'd ugly cry if I watched the movie, and I didn't want to do that on a plane with people stuck around me able to watch me, so I picked Malificent, but then someone in front of me, whose screen I could see between the seats PICKED The Fault in Our Stars and I ended up seeing enough of it, through the seats, that I ugly cried anyway, and I was like, oh great! Now everyone things I'm ugly crying at Malificent! Still makes me laugh to this day...
Oooh this: "happiness became easier to find when I realized I didn't have forever to find it." I feel this every year!
I didn't like The Year of Magical Thinking either. I wish I could remember WHAT I didn't like about it. I only remember one specific thing, which is that she wrote as if her husband dying in his 70s was something she could never have imagined could happen---that nothing about the world around her had prepared her that he could die at such an extremely young age.
I have felt so seen since meeting other people who did not love The Year of Magical Thinking.
That said, I LOVED (I mean, it is horrific, so I loved it in the sense I thought it was tremendously well-written) When Breath Becomes Air. It is one of my top favourite memoirs of all times. I definitely needed tissues for that one...
Allison, Goodness! I was just telling Big A how much I love Tig Notaro and that perhaps we should watch _One Mississippi_ together... (It was because TN appeared in another show we were watching together _The Morning Show_). I'd watched a few episodes, but had forgotten that it starts with her mother dying... Don't think I can watch it right now.
The Andrea Gibson documentary sounds brilliant, and I'll have to watch it sometime. But my heart already feels so "covered in stretch marks" right now. And I'm crushed that another hero--Alice Wong--died this weekend too. People need to stop.
I DNFed The Year of Magical Thinking. I mean, I *plan* to go back to it someday, but also... it wasn't for me.
This documentary doesn't sound like it's for me either, because I hate to ugly cry. I can drum up enough sadness in my own brain, thank you. But I'm glad it resonated so strongly with you!
I'm still thinking about that quote, and now that I know the context I'm interested in that documentary. I like what you said about sadness and humor- yes, we're all a little bit sad but then there's people falling into fountains (hee hee... why is that funny? But it is!) and we just have to lean into it.
I think we will watch that eventually. North and I listen to the Handsome podcast that co-hosted by TN and two other queer comedians.
This post is incredibly moving and wonderful. It was just what I needed to read today. And that photo is terrific.
I need to watch this. Andrea Gibson was just wonderful.
Post a Comment