River Phoenix is dead

I was watching TV last night when I saw a commercial for a new movie coming out that stars Johnny Depp as the voice of the main character ('Rango'). It's an animated movie. I think it's even in 3-D. I'll certainly go to see it if it's in 3-D. I only really go to 3-D movies now since it's too expensive to go to a movie that I could easily rent on DVD a few months later for only a few dollars.

Anyway, I was watching the commercial and thinking to myself - Johnny Depp is a really good actor, has he won an Oscar yet? He must have! So, of course, like any curiosity I have anymore, I looked up Johnny Depp online - via Google - and found out: 1) No, Johnny Depp has not won an Oscar yet although he has been nominated a few times and 2) River Phoenix's death will always be linked to Johnny Depp (as it seems since there were a bunch of hits mentioning River Phoenix.) [Actually, after reviewing this I realized that this is not how I got to River Phoenix - I guess he will always be linked to River's death in my mind since I think I just wondered if they ever were in a movie together because I knew they were friends and they both have that same je ne sais quoi but I couldn't find any references to a movie together and couldn't remember it and anyway if you do look up both of their names you will find most of the links to be about his death.] That, of course, opened a wound I had not thought about in a long time.

In fourth grade, or maybe it was the Summer after fourth grade, I went to a birthday party - a slumber party (which I always dreaded since I had issues cause I liked to actually go to sleep and I had homesickness problems) - at a friend's house fairly far from home (about a half hour). Almost all of the girls in my class were there (I went to a small, private school with approximately 30-35 kids per grade/class). I remember it was a warm late Spring or Summer evening, we played tetherball in the backyard...and other such activities. There might have even been an above-ground pool. Then, after pizza and cake and presents, we went to a room that we set up our sleeping bags in for the night and we chose between two movies - one that I cannot remember, the other one the majority picked: 'Stand By Me' which I don't think I wanted to see but I also didn't know much about it. So our friend's mom put the VHS tape in the machine and we all got comfy and watched it. Well, I think it's probably "needless to say", but yes, I fell in love with that movie - but really, I fell in love with River Phoenix and his portrayal of Chris Chambers. It was 1987 and I was 10.

There was something about River Phoenix that felt real to me - he made me feel like he and I were one of the same or definitely similar. His emotions onscreen were my emotions inside. Even his facial expressions somehow seemed reminiscent of my own facial expressions. For a long time I thought I was in love with him - a deep, bonded love, more than just sexual. Then, years later, I realized it wasn't that I wanted to be with him - it was that I wanted to be him. For years after, I was obsessed with getting my hair cut like Chris Chambers' hair in the movie - a "buzz cut"! I read interviews with River Phoenix which only made me love him more - he was just a good, clean-cut, genuine, kind and peaceful person - just like Chris Chambers in the movie (except in the movie he had a bad reputation because of his family). Even his name feels peaceful - natural. I used to wish my name was like that - I even thought of 'Ocean' as something I'd want to be called! I read somewhere that he lived in San Diego, CA, with his family and I immediately became fixated on someday living in San Diego! River Phoenix was a no-drug-taking, vegetarian, peace-and-nature loving kid, as far as I knew.

Then, after a few years of a lot of life for me - I woke up on November 1st, 1993 (almost an entire year since the untimely and tragic death of my older sister and her newborn son, my nephew) and heard on the radio that River Phoenix died the night before outside a nightclub in L.A. from a drug overdose.

I couldn't believe it. I was shocked. I was floored. I was devastated. It felt like my soulmate - or part of my soul, even - had suddenly turned into something unrecognizable and vanished into thin air. I thought it was a lie - River Phoenix didn't do drugs! He was a "good kid"! He was anti-drugs! He can't die - he's only 23! (Although, at the time, I was 16 and felt like 23 was an "adult".)

Still, to this day, I find it hard to accept. This was a mistake. A fatal mistake. This wasn't the River Phoenix most of us knew. But now it will be the River Phoenix that most of us will remember forever. It makes me sad and angry. It angers me because it's just the smallest fraction of who he was - I know cause I felt it - doing drugs and what not (I even went through a brief phase when I did some hard drugs around the same age!) And if he had lived he would've figured it out as bullshit and moved on with his life to create more meaningful performances and art that would truly affect people and move them. But in this Universe, in this version, he died and his legacy is fixed.

One of the websites I found when I was on my internet search last night gave a very detailed description of what happened that night that he died - as detailed as someone who wasn't there might be able to give. It was really quite graphic even though I didn't click on any of the links to see his coffin or to hear the 911 call that his brother, Joaquin, made outside the Viper Room (Johnny Depp's nightclub that will forever be associated with River Phoenix's death.) I'm usually one of those gruesomely curious people who will click on those links and listen to the calls but the idea of it disgusted me in this case. I don't want to see him like that - I had trouble even reading the description of his death - his foaming at the mouth, yelling at the guy who gave him the last bump of a drug ("Persian Brown"), uncontrollable flailing and seizures. He did so many different drugs that night - marijuana, valium, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin. It's almost as if he was trying to kill himself. Instead, I think he just had too many opportunities - he probably was just given each drug to try. Most people can't afford that many drugs! Well, no one can in the end.

Honestly, maybe I'm also a little scarred from reading that description. It reminded me of my own drug experiences. Doing drugs is scary. The last time I did cocaine I felt that horrible feeling when we were coming down from it (cause we ran out!) - like I would never feel good again. My heart was racy and I was jittery - I think it felt like drinking way too much coffee but not feeling good and happy and free - it felt like being caged in my own body as it tried to get rid of the poison. I was 22 at the time, living in Staten Island with a girlfriend who was 18 and I was supporting both of us on a graduate student stipend, attending NYU for a masters in music technology. I never finished the program, let alone the first semester! Moving out of NYC probably saved me from becoming a drug addict (and possibly saved my life, although I don't know if I'd ever let it get that bad.) I wanted to move, in part, to get away from the easy and sleazy access. That girlfriend was into drugs and picked up sleazy people all the time to hang out with and get drugs from. So we moved to Pittsburgh. And I applied to Pitt and got into their doctorate program in biology - MCDB: Molecular, Cell, Developmental biology & Biochemistry. The rest is history...

(Actually, all of it is..)

Just to truly complete this blog and not leave it all hanging, I guess I just really miss River Phoenix. I wish he was alive now and continuing with his art. Sometimes it feels like a piece of me died when he died. Or maybe a piece of him stayed alive in me.

Book-ends

I recently read the book, "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. It is about a young 22-24 year old man that gives away all his possessions (donating $25,000 to charity to end hunger), then travels the western US by hitchhiking and working odd-jobs, then makes a final "ultimate" journey to live in the Alaskan bush for 3-4 months, where he ends up dying from starvation. It's a true story and the book is basically an investigation of how this boy/man, Chris McCandless, comes to this end. It's the type of book where you know the basics of the story from the beginning - that he will die by starvation in the Alaskan bush. However, I still wanted to read it, I suppose because I am a bit of a voyeur when it comes to people making life-altering or, ultimately, -terminating decisions. Also, he died only three months before my sister died in 1992. I can even recall where I was when he was dying - I was in Spain, having the worst trip I ever had because I was having the very first major depressive episode of my life.

There are a lot of synchronicities that I am having with this particular book/story at this particular time in my life. I started reading the book on the plane returning home from Spain - a second trip to Spain 15 years later, but this time with my family and having been in treatment for my depression for 15 years and now stable, non-symptomatic. I was 15 when my sister died, and now it's 15 years later. I have been thinking of this trip as a sort of book-end to that period of my life. However, maybe it's not this trip that will be the book-end. I have also started going to a group called "A Year to Live" which meets once a month for a year to "practice dying," as the facilitator says. In a year, we will meet one last time on the day we "die". The premise of the group is to really try to live this year as if it is the last year of our lives - to try to do what we might do if we found out we would die in a year, which we might, anyway. We could die on any day, at any moment. I started going to this group right before I left for Spain.

Both my sister and Chris McCandless lived fast lives, but seemed to achieve what they'd always wanted in the last year of their life - Chris spent over 100 days "living off the land" in the Alaskan bush and my sister had a baby (and a fiancé and a home of her own.) Chris was 24 (or 25, don't know) when he died and my sister was 19, two months shy of 20. I don't believe either of them wanted or believed they were going to die when they did. At least Chris knew he was dying in the last few days of his life - he even wrote a short goodbye note and took a photo of himself waving goodbye while holding the note. All it said was: "I had a good life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and God bless all." In the photo, despite his extreme gaunt and almost skeletal appearance, he is smiling a bright, what appears to be genuine, smile. He is really at peace and happy, it seems. I find that so intriguing. How did he get there?

I have no answers to the above but it's what I am searching to find - that same peace or contentment with my life. I am haunted by my sister's death and now by Chris' story. I think he's a remarkable person, but I don't necessarily agree with everything he did as told in the book - he cut himself off from his family which really hurt them, making the death that much harder. At least by the time my sister died, I think my family had all come together and we all knew we loved each other. On the other hand, Chris made it clear that he was ok with dying, basically giving a re-assuring note to his death, that he was at peace and had a happy life. I don't know that my sister would've felt the same way - she was just beginning the life she wanted (almost) - having just had a child. All three of them died - my sister, her baby (my nephew), and the father (her fiancé). I'm sure she would not have been content at all three of them dying.

Another part of Chris' story that haunts me is that he was so intense and certain of how he thought things and people should be, and he lived these certainties - he really wanted to live life without the need for possessions or money. I admire that, but I suppose I also find myself feeling the dilemma that I don't want them yet I need them - for instance, I have debt to pay off from school so I can't just quit everything. Or I suppose I could, but then I'd be on the run from creditors and eventually the law, which is also not the way I wish to live. However, I suppose he was still young and hadn't come to have as many responsibilities. I think he would have. He was obviously extremely intelligent, just made a couple of mistakes that cost him his life. And in the end, he was ok with those mistakes - he accepted them - which is a type of responsibility.

I hope that my journey this year will help me get closer to that same type of peace that Chris felt. On the other hand, sometimes I worry that I don't want to be too ok with dying - cause then I might just die at that point.