Coping: If You Can’t Fix It
On my flight to San Diego, the movie list included Brokeback Mountain. Between Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and Randy Quaid, it’s quite a movie. It is, in my opinion, one of the best stories about the human condition that I can think of. When I went back several years ago to find the original book by Annie Proulx, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t taken from a book at all, but rather a short story of less than ten pages. If I had bothered to watch the credit roll, I would have seen that. I was duly impressed anyway on several levels. As a storyteller I am always inclined to think that the story is all, and surely the heart of this story is soulful and deep. Deep enough to catch director Ang Lee’s eye for the substance with which to work. Deep enough to interest some of the greatest actors of our day in a true ensemble cast where they are all stars to the heartfelt story.
I need to stay with this. Think about the dimensions of the story as told in the movie. It’s so much more than the story of two gay cowboys. It’s the struggle of the great Western individual, the one raised by an upright and spartan farming family and the one barely raised at all as his parents were victims of a car crash. The one that can’t help but express his feelings and the one who can’t express himself at all. Neither marriage, nor money (or lack of it), nor children, nor even trysts, lighten the load. Both men are burdened by their existence. They are manly to the extreme as cowboys should be. They live their lives in extreme defiance of who they are in their hearts. The struggle is palpable. All they have is Brokeback Mountain and it breaks their back and spirit. Jack’s tag line “I wish I knew how to quit you”, speaks to the depth of the pain these men feel, and it is a hopeless pain that can never go away. Even their dream is plagued by the nightmare of what they have been taught to expect from the world for their “sins”.
Both Williams and Hathaway portray the loveless and long-suffering wives of these two stoic men who fight to get through their loveless lives. One settles for the minimal comfort of kindness that helps her raise her family. The other recedes into the big business life of mechanized ranching and the sorority-laced Country Club life of West Texas. Neither figure prominently in either mens’ life for no reasons of their own. Their lives may not be central, but they are as tragic as the mens’. In fact, their lives of quiet desperation may be more relatable since they are everywoman in this story.
Ledger starts out with nothing but a paper bag of luggage. He leaves Jack’s folk’s spare and lonely ranch house with another paper bag with the shirts he and Jack wore and bled on up on Brokeback Mountain. He ends the story by telling his visiting daughter, who complains that he has no furniture that “if ya got nothin’, ya don’t need nothin’.” In his trailer, his closet betrays his credo. He may not have had much, but he did have Jack’s shirt and his memory of Brokeback Mountain and the immortal love it held. His last utterance is to the empty trailer and the heavens, the recognition that he did, indeed, need only love in whatever way it found him and however it left him.
I have a picture on my office wall about coping. It came from a Skol Snuff ad in a magazine. It shows a cowboy carrying his saddle and bowing under the weight. It says, “Some Men Never Compromise; They Cope.” This spoke to me at a tough moment in my life, so I kept it and framed it. When I watch Brokeback Mountain, I think about coping. And then I realize how fortunate I have been in my personal life compared to Heath and Jake, or even Michelle and Anne. I’ve found love and it wasn’t hidden in all the wrong places.
In my work life as well, there has been nothing to cope with for the most part. I’ve had ups and downs. Some might think I’ve had extraordinary challenges (I can think of at least four or five). But then I think about all the good luck I’ve had as well and I realize that on balance the good luck has overwhelmed the bad luck. I have never been one to think that the success I’ve had is due to hard work and innate ability alone. They’ve both been present, but neither have had to stand alone without very good fortune. Blessings need to be counted every day and I have been extraordinarily blessed.
The first movie that I watched on this long flight was called Breakthrough. It is the true story of a fourteen year old adopted boy (of Guatemalan heritage) who falls through the ice and is more or less pronounced dead after almost twenty minutes without oxygen. It chronicles the story of his recovery as told through the acts and thoughts of faith by his mother and their pastor. The renowned physician who cares for him and all the first responders are unable to explain the events of his being fished out of the freezing water, his being coded out and then revived, his survival during his first forty-eight hours and his complete recovery without any traumatic or lingering injury. There is no explanation other than to call it a miracle. I’m sure someone has found an explanatory path through the medical science of it all and what it probably boils down to is a series of amazing coincidences that can best be characterized as extreme good luck. If you are spiritual and want to attribute the luck to a higher power, who are any of us to contest it? Luck is what it is and it’s origins will always be a mystery to us all. I can think of few things on earth that are better characterized as godly intervention than luck. Whether the luck is random or purposeful is way beyond my pay grade.
What I have learned is exactly what Ennis learned. If you can’t fix it you have to be able to stand it. Coping is all that’s left, but you can always hope for some good luck and who knows, maybe the fix is right behind.