I’m Gracie
INTRODUCTION
I’m releasing this episode on December 30th of 2023. September might hath thirty days and December a day more, but as far as I’m concerned, we’ve come to the end of 2023.
Endings can often be difficult in writing and storytelling. Life, after all, rarely lets the main character ride off into the sunset as credits roll. Instead, life has about as much of an ending as a newspaper, or a soap opera. We move through a series of crecendoing conflict and crisis, which move toward resolution, before reaching a new cliffhanger. It never stops.
Nevertheless, the hero heading off into the sunset beckons. I can’t think of a single client–whether writing a college essay, family history, or work of fiction–who hasn’t struggled with the ending.
I met Mike at the beginning of this year, January or February. I had responded to a query he had posted to a Facebook writers group. A little while later he wrote back. He said he would be interested in working with a writing coach. He had a lot to write, he said. But he wasn’t sure if I was prepared for all that he had to write about.
I was excited to meet Mike. To be honest, I don’t have many male clients, apart from those applying for college. And I was intrigued by at the idea of someone with decades of stories burning to escape. But have also learned to temper my excitement as plenty of people want to start writing but struggle to keep it up.
At our first meeting he read me a story. The story you’re about to hear in fact. Or about the first two thirds of what you’re about to hear.
When he finished I was silent, still processing the raw honesty and imagery that I’d heard. Uncomfortable, I think, with my silence, or nervous, he asked: “So, have I got a story?”
“You definitely have a story,” I replied, “a really good one.” He seemed finally able to breathe again. “You don’t have an ending yet, but we can work on that.”
He cracked a grin. “We can work on it if you’ll have me,” he said, or something thereabouts.
In many ways, Mike has defined my 2023 professionally. This whole year we have met weekly, often twice a week. I can’t go into it yet, but I’ll tell you he’s working on an incredible project that should be out in 2024 and it’s been a honor to witness him craft it.
Back in October I asked if he’d like to share a piece on this podcast. His other project is reaching an end, but we agreed that this first story would be better. Except it still didn’t have an ending.
It feels so fitting, therefore, that as we reach the end of 2023, guest author Mike Rickett is able to debut his completed piece with us. The piece itself speaks of the transformative power of storytelling (enhanced with mind-expanding substances), and of the changes that can come about in just a year or two. I hope you enjoy it.
The piece is called “I’m Gracie,” written and recorded by Mike Rickett.
“I’M GRACIE” BY MIKE RICKETT
“I’m Gracie” by Mike Rickett
“Hon, would you move to California with me?”
I said this to my fiancé Karen one Saturday morning, completely out of the blue. I wasn’t thinking about California, I wasn’t thinking about anything, I just blurted it out.
“Yeah sure. But first I’ve got to finish these dishes.”
“Ok. We probably can’t leave now anyway. I’m too high to drive. Maybe when the movie is done.”
“What are you watching?”
“Good Will Hunting.”
“You haven’t seen it before?”
“Yeah, but not for ages. And Netflix is recommending it to me, so here I am
///
I actually recall exactly when I first watched Good Will Hunting because the weekend was so memorable. It was the last week of August 2005. My then girlfriend and I had gone to Boston to watch the Sox beat the Tigers 9-8, before driving up to a friend’s beach house in Rye, NH.
It was a gorgeous summer weekend in New England, and we were oblivious to the obliteration Hurricane Katrina was wrecking on the Gulf Coast. I was planning on going outside to work on my sunburn, but found myself in front of the TV.
Since a young age, TV has meant the world to me, far more than my actual family. TV raised me. TV shielded me. I had no one to talk with in my childhood. Even as an adult I’ve turned to pulling up my favorite clips the way someone else might call up an old friend. “Rudy,” “Rocky,” “Remember the Titans” would keep me company, let me cry, and give me encouragement.
But the movie that came to stand head and shoulders above the rest was “Good Will Hunting”.
Back in 2005 when I first watched it I was stone-cold sober and I remember clearly everything in it. Little did I know ahead of that first watch at the beach house that the movie would become the most inner-personal thought-provoking movie of my lifetimes (“lifetimes” originally was a typo, however, I left it there as in this story that typo is no mistake).
///
Ok back to that Saturday morning with Karen. It was the summer of 2022. In the last decades, I had gone through massive changes. I’d moved across the country and back. I’d divorced my adopted family, changed my name, and gotten engaged to Karen, the greatest woman I’ve ever met. I’d also become a massive pothead.
That particular morning I’d gotten super stoned. All my walls were down and without my anxieties standing guard I was wide open to feel all my feelings.
I should say this became one of the greatest days of my life; poor Karen, on the other hand, was about to have a very scary day.
So there I am sitting in the recliner, stoned, and watching Good Will Hunting. I’m at the scene where Matt Damon’s Will was freaking out and screaming at his girlfriend Skylar, played by Minnie Driver. He’s screaming that she doesn’t want to know about his bad childhood, the beatings, bruises, and all the atrocities he endured as a boy. Skylar is crying, trying to tell him how much she wants to understand and be there for him. But Will couldn’t believe that. He storms off and eventually breaks up with her, off camera.
As I watched, tears started rolling, lightly, down my cheeks. From my chair I looked over at Karen as she busily moved around the kitchen.
“Honey,” I said, emotion in my voice, “I really relate to this…….. Honey, I’m Good Will Hunting!”
Karen nodded, then quipped “I know you are……except the genius part!” and we both cracked up.
//
By the time the “it’s not your fault” scene came on, I was over the rainbow high. I was now standing up in front of my chair, feeling like an uncredited extra in the scene, playing myself.
In front of me was sitting Will’s psychologist, Dr. Sean Maguire, portrayed by the late great Robin Williams. He was holding Will’s file as they discussed Will’s upbringing under the thumb of a tyrannical foster father. Will is still holding back from Sean, but Sean isn’t stopping til Will lets him in and lets go. [CLIP]
Sean: Hey, Will? I don't know a lot. You see this? All this shit?
[Holds up the file, and drops it on his desk]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: [Will shrugs] Yeah, I know that.
[Will averts his eyes to the floor]
Sean: Look at me son.
[Will locks eyes with Sean]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: [Will nods] I know.
Sean: No. It's not your fault.
Will: I know
Sean: No, no, you don't. It's not your fault.
[Sean moves closer to Will]
Sean: Hmm?
Will: I know.
[Will stands up, trying to keep distance]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: Alright.
Sean: It's not your fault.
[Will closes his eyes, he's fighting for control]
Sean: It's not your fault.
Will: Don't fuck with me.
[Will shoves Sean back]
Will: Don't fuck with me, Sean, not you!
Sean: It's not your fault. It's not your fault.
[Will breaks into sobs. They hug]
Sean: Fuck them, ok?
I was crying. I was standing and crying and laughing and for some reason bending sharply to the left and clapping my hands hard, almost victoriously.
“I WAS RIGHT!” I shouted out of pure joy. “I WAS RIGHT – HAHAHAHA – I WAS RIGHT!”
I blurily recall Karen, who had started sweeping the part of the room by the tv, asking, “About what?”
“ABOUT EVERYTHING - HAHAHA” I screamed; then I remember her bright purple shirt fading as I blacked out.
///
I came to. During this blackout I had drifted across the room, and was now standing off to the side of the TV. I could feel my world within me spinning clockwise. I felt like a top, continually spinning in slow motion. As I drifted around the room I shuffled through Karen's tidy piles of sweepings.
“Stay out of the dirt,” she said, sternly, frustrated at my stoner carelessness. “Mike! Stay out of the dirt.”
//
“Stay out of the dirt.”
Stay out of the dirt has stayed with me, beyond that day.
Stay out of the dirt is what I now hear when I find my mind spinning out, driven by anxieties and memories. I hear Karen’s voice and I hear her words. And it reminds me that the dirt is my past and I need to stay out of it. Of all the many things I’m grateful to Karen for, I’m especially glad to have her voice in my head reminding me that.
//
I’m still spinning. Then a wave of emotion came over me. I was about to die.
I spun past heaven and then past hell. Amid the movement the only steady thing for me to focus on was one pile of dirt. As I watched it I realized that pile of dirt was my hell, and I was the only one who could clean it up. Not physically, but spiritually: I needed to plow through that dirt. It was going to be rough–literally hellish. But I just accepted I was going to hell. There was nothing I could do about it.
I also had this feeling, a kind of hope, that I was “taking one for the team.” I was the yin to someone else’s yang. My miserable life meant someone else would be able to have a good and happy one. And because I was taught to hate myself, this made total sense to me. “Yup, I’m the horrible person those shitty people told me I was. This is my fate. And I deserve it.”
Those shitty people were my adopted parents. Having been adopted, I always believed that one family had already given up on me. But instead of rescuing me, my adoptive family took me in to be a punching bag, figuratively and literally. Daily, I was reminded that I couldn’t do anything right. I was always wrong, and I do mean always. If I put something on the left, it belonged on the right. If I then moved it to the right, it now belonged in the middle, and once I finally placed it in the middle, then I’d be told I should have done it faster.
Very rarely, I would do something correctly, yet somehow even this would deserve criticism and belittlement: “Why couldn’t you have done it like that last time!?”
It was always my fault. Always.
So when I saw the father figure of Sean telling Will, a young man just trying to figure his life out that ‘it wasn’t his fault,’ it struck a chord. Not just one chord, but every damn chord I’ve ever had.
//
[Clip] https://youtu.be/8gfipuaIA68?si=T2Q5q-uJWmmbcIRd starting at 1:10
//
“Too much of a pussy to cash it in” - talk about your tough love?
This is another scene that I’d watched before, but again it hadn’t sunk in like it did that day.
I started nodding my head in agreement with Ben Affleck’s Chuckie as he scolded Will, not out of anger but out of love.
Around this point, Karen had had enough. She grabbed her stuff and headed to our bedroom. The dogs went with her; they know who the Queen is.
But for her to move to a different room is very unusual. We’re always in the same room together when we’re home. Our story goes back over 35 years when we first met in Spanish 1 class. There’s a lot to unpack in our suitcase, but where we are today, we just like being together. With a short portion of the movie left to watch, I stayed upstairs for more visions before I followed Karen and laid down on the bed next to her.
With my eyes closed, the spinning intensified and I started seeing visions of myself, spinning, as if I were made of rubber, my body twisting more than 360 degrees in some spots. I started to feel as if I were spinning into Karen. It felt so incredibly real. We were melding into one being. I was the bad to her good. Karen, who went through life with love, a devoted family, determination, and drive, had all that I didn’t and represented all that I wasn’t. And I was ok with it. If there needs to be balance, I’d gladly take the beatings if that would ensure Karen’s safety, happiness, and success. Yin and Yang.
Karen was on her phone, unaware of all I was silently witnessing, when suddenly I felt my death was imminent. As I exhaled I felt softness and acceptance. I felt at peace, appreciative that the Universe had granted me these final visions, glimpses behind the curtains of my life.
I was about to drift away. I almost felt excited to go. It had been such a hard life, crippled by loneliness, and burdened by carrying so much hatred, hurt, and anger. It felt bittersweet that I would die having finally made this life with Karen, but there was a relief that I could finally let go of all this crap.
Thinking it was over, I rolled towards Karen and used my final breaths: “Karen…..I’m……about…….to die.”
Then I took her face in both my hands and pushed my lips onto hers. This was not a normal kiss. I was mashing my face into hers while pulling her face into mine. I could see the black of me merge with the white of her as the purple of the Universe watched on and we started spinning in unison. Then all went completely black.
///
Somehow I was awake again. I opened my eyes, confused. I was no longer on the bed. I was on the floor next to the bed, the doggie stairs fallen alongside me. I was no longer spinning. Instead, the crying, laughing, and clapping had returned.
My eyes closed again and I could see myself hurdling headfirst through a celestial chute, like a roller coaster shooting through a long and winding tube. Then a light appeared. As I got closer I could make out an office, bright and filled with people. As I moved through the tunnel I realized it was a birth. It was my birth. My rebirth. I was being born again, this time as a dog. Not just any dog, but my dog Gracie. I wasn’t going to hell after all. I was going to heaven. Heaven for me was to begin life again as a dog.
//
As a little boy of 3 or 4, I would wish that I had been born a girl. Girls, I knew from watching my adopted sister, never got into trouble. It’s not that I actually wanted to change my gender, but it was the only way little me could see to avoid getting into trouble.
I was never truly calm or relaxed, as a kid, especially at home. That house was full of negativity; yelling, screaming, door slamming, and violence, day in and day out. I was in a constant state of fight, flight or freeze, awaiting whatever blow-up would happen that day. It was exhausting, and to this day I feel shell-shocked.
As a boy and even as a man, I crave the safety and quiet of being home alone. So I would miss school or work–not because I’m lazy or don’t care, but because it gave me that alone time I needed to relax, to be in the company of the friends and family I felt safe with: Bob Barker, Jack Tripper, Arnold Jackson, and Mrs. Brady. With them I was able to breathe and feel free, something I know so many people take for granted.
I was never free to find out who I was, because I was so screwed up from being told that I was always wrong. I had no idea of who I actually was or what I actually wanted in life. No Clue.
Instead, I was hypersensitive and hyperaware of everyone and everything around me. Ironically this meant I couldn’t pay attention to anything, whether in school or at work. I had zero focus. There were too many alarms, whistles, and buzzers in my head warning me of danger. To this day, when I hear loud footsteps from the floor above, I tense up; I’m 52 years old.
And so in any moment of pride or victory I’ve had throughout my life, I was unable to enjoy it. I was too busy waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel like a winner, or like I’d accomplished anything. I’d been taught that I don’t win; I lose.
//
I’m lying on the floor, crying, clapping, and laughing, being reborn into the body of my dog Gracie. I’ve always loved dogs. They just have the best lives. Sleep, eat, and get scratches; what’s not to love? If there were a heaven, being a dog would have been it for me. So from my spot on the floor I was overflowing with joy and happiness, even relief.
I began yellin,g over and over again, “I’M GRACIE!........I’M GRACIE……..HAHAHAHAAA…….I’MMMMM GRAAY-HAYY-HAYY-CIE!.........I’M GRACIE!”.
The tears were flying out of me, as was laughter with each word. I was clapping and pumping my fists. I was awash in a feeling of total freedom. I was amazed. I had never felt this way before, ever. I declared “I’M GRACIE” with the same emotion as Rocky Balboa in “Rocky II” after he beat Apollo Creed yelling “YO, ADRIAN……..I DID IT!”
After years of hurt and pain, years of insignificant battles won and the many wars lost, I felt I’d actually succeeded. I, Mike, had actually succeeded. I, Mike, wasn’t a piece of shit, I was going to Heaven! “YO, MIKE…....YOU DID IT”!
I was on top of the world. All fears and anxieties of the other shoe dropping, were gone. It had dropped, and it was amazing. For me anyway.
Poor Karen, on the other hand, could not understand me. She wasn’t in my head and from her spot on the bed she couldn’t even hear me properly. As I learned the next day, every time I shouted with joy and relief and complete understanding “I’m Gracie” what she heard was me shouting “I’m crazy,” which coming out of a large man–six foot three and about two hundred and sixty-five pounds–must have been scary for her.
////
It’s been two years since that day, and a year since I first wrote about it. In this time I have thought about that day over and over again, each time remembering the feelings of relief and discovery it had given me.
I remember nodding my head during the Chuckie and Will scene, feeling Chuckie’s rant in a whole new way. Before, I had thought I was Chuckie and needed to build someone else up, to push them to cash in their winning lottery ticket. But that day I realized I had that backwards. I was the one sitting on my ticket/I WAS THE PUSSY
I always liked writing stories in high school and college, and I love goofing around, telling silly, drawn out tales. I can be witty and funny, but I didn’t think that it was a talent, I’m not trying to do something. To me that wasn’t work, it was just trying to have fun. After all, I’ve never liked working at anything. I don’t even like the word work. But I like the words “Fun.” “Laugh.” “Happy.” “Love.”
As an adult I rediscovered writing, and it hasn’t felt like work. Writing my thoughts down is fun. It helps me laugh, it makes me happy and helps me see the love that I missed growing up. And it all goes into something I can share and use to entertain others.
If I have a winning lottery ticket, it would be my creativity. So why not cash it in sooner? Why wait for that day and Chuckie’s speech?
Well for so long I never dared write what was inside of me for many reasons, but mostly because I feared ridicule from my family and friends. Ridicule and rejection. I knew, subconsciously, that I could not handle the rejection, so for decades I didn’t try.
I figure it was the same with Will. With all that he had been through, Will just accepted things to be a certain way. He’d live there in Southie and be friends with his boys for life. Like me, Will didn’t care too much to help rich people make more money, and otherwise, he didn’t see what else he could do with his talent for math.
But a gift for storytelling is different from a gift for math. In sharing my story and the realizations therapy has helped me make about my upbringing, I can do a lot for others.
I’ve gone back into my “I’m Gracie” day so many times, I can picture it all like it was yesterday. It was, and is, still so real. It wasn’t a dream, nor was it just my imagination. My mind took me where it needed me to go, to get me to where I needed to be.
It was scary—the visions and the craziness, as well as the high itself. This was the highest I’ve ever been to this day, and that high certainly gave me the most important and longest-lasting imagery.
I’ve had other highs like this since Like the one I had while watching Goodfellas, in which I saw visions of Santa Clause, the Ohm symbol and the church, amongst other things. I’m not sure how those intersect at all and I’m not ready to try and tie Santa, Ohm and Religion together, but I’ll let you know if I ever make sense of it.
That being said, I’m still unable to describe everything that I saw on that first day. For Example, I can’t explain why I was yelling “I was right” at one point, only to be followed by the thoughts of going to Hell.
As I typed that last sentence something occurred to me: my being right didn’t just mean I wasn’t wrong, it was more about how they were trying to hold me back. I was told I couldn’t do anything right, but I was never given a true chance to succeed. It wasn’t my fault; I was right.
That one day has resulted in a massive new way of life for me, or at least the potential for such. I wrote the first draft of “I’m Gracie” needing only to get the story out of me. However, I enjoyed writing it so much I looked into local writing classes. I signed up for one but they canceled it due to under enrollment. So I kept looking. I put out some feelers in some Facebook writing groups, and found a writing coach.
The first time we met I read the draft to her, after which, I flat out asked her if I had a story. She said I had most of a story, but at the time the story ended with “Karen was having a bad day.” She explained to me that a story’s end should somehow meet the beginning. The story then, and still, starts with me asking Karen about moving to California, but as of this conversation a year ago the story couldn’t quite end yet, something was missing. So we put it aside and worked on other stuff.
Then a few months ago Karen said something to me: “Hon, you want to honeymoon in California?”
Karen and I have been engaged, with multiple wedding dates set and rescheduled, and multiple venues discussed and rejected. As hard as a wedding date seems to be to set—and to be clear we still haven’t gotten married—the honeymoon was obvious from the second Karen blurted it out. Karen knew it would be fun to go out to Cali and watch me geek out in Hollywood.
So we did it last month. And geek out I did! I was so happy while we were in California. I was all smiles, all week; and I did all of it without marijuana. I was just happy being there. We did two tours at the Warner Bros Studios, and I’d honestly go back there this very minute, if I could!
And then once we were back home, I realized this story could be completed.
Back to the I’m Gracie day, I did have one more vision, and it was guided by Good Will Hunting. We watch Will drive away on the interstate, he is the only person in the car. I closed my eyes and saw myself in a convertible driving alone, the only car on the road, just like WIll. We both were driving into an overcast horizon, but mine involved an underpass, in which once I cleared it, everything was bright white.
It wasn’t gloomy or ominous, it was just bright white. And I felt I was on my way to a future that is wide open and bright.
I have analyzed the visions from that day a million times, trying to remember more, and trying to learn of what I was teaching myself.
During all of the deep thinking about my life that I’ve done these past two years, One of my most lasting realizations is the belief that we live our lives, multiple times, over and over again. I also came to believe that before we’re reborn we make deals with other spirits. To get to where we need to be, we must make and accept deals from spirits ranging from good to bad. Now when I think about the family that adopted me, I realize I must have made some kind of deal with him.
As awful as that deal was for me for so many years, I believe it was the right deal in the end. I have had curiosities of “what would happen if” scenarios my entire life. Sometimes I run those scenarios in the big picture. For example, I believe that if I had become a massive success in my youth, I would not be alive today. Or if I were alive, I’d more than likely be incarcerated. Other times, I look at tiny moments and ask “what would happen if…” What would happen if I threw this glass of milk against the living room brick wall? What would happen if I drove my car through the garage door? What would happen if………well, you get the picture.
So in hindsight, I realize that if I wasn’t scared shitless of my adopted father, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have acted on some of those things mentioned. That being said, while I was afraid of doing things myself, I acted out through others. I have the power to influence people and I can be very persuasive at times. Each time I “QUOTE UNQUOTE “helped” someone I would get a little stronger myself, which kept me going, regardless of whether my influence was good or bad.
So I wonder what would have happened if I’d been the kind of person to direct people to do my bidding. Convince them that it’s okay to do this, that, or the other, even though I wouldn’t do it myself. Like the guy who got fired for trying to start a union at a place we both worked. I was all for him doing it, and had plenty of “friendly advice”, but I wasn’t going to help. He left a loose end dangling and was fired when he was found out. It may have not been my fault, but I’m not innocent.
The idea of making a spiritual “deal” gives me some joy, as it locks me in so I can’t destroy myself and others. Instead, I’ll be able to teach myself what I need to know to become the human being I need to be. And if the “deal” is possible, so is what I like to call “popcorn teachings.”
I like to think that I’ve spiritually left myself pieces of popcorn to help me along my path, little things to show me that everything is ok, and to keep me on the right path.
Sometimes the popcorn is nothing more than looking at the clock and it’s 5:14, my birthday. Other kernels I’ll see over the day include 11:11, 12;34, 3:33, etc. Seeing numbers like this is the Universe's way of telling me I am on the correct path. Sure enough, I seem to relax and breathe easier every single time. It’s such a great feeling.
I’m not sure what the future holds for me. Sometimes I get into a mindset that I’ll be working at the Warner Bros Studios, alongside Geroge Clooney, and I can’t help but smile and feel warm all over. Other times I struggle to understand why we’re here, and why we do anything. What’s the sense? No matter the amount of good someone does, there’s another person out there trying to destroy that good, and it’s usually for some type of personal gain. That sucks.
But two people are stronger than one person, this is a fact. We beat into our children's heads that there is no “i” in “team”, and to work together to accomplish great things. “Teamwork makes the dream work,” right? Well, if you are in a position to work with someone, and you instead try to hold them back, you are the problem.
People talk about “our society,” or “how society dictates,” and so on. I disagree with that. I do not believe we even have a society. A society is a group of people all lifting one another up, looking out for the greater good. A society is best described by the phrase “a rising tide raises all ships.” Now I ask you, does that sound like the world we live in? Unlike “team”, there is an “I” in ‘society; right smack dab in the center of it
///
When we were out in California and I was geeking out at Warner Bros, I was blown away by all of the things on the tour, especially the buildings. I went to Central Perk, I saw the steps to City Hall that Batman and Robin ran up, and the gazebo from Hazzard County that Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane chased the Duke Boys around. Both days we were there had me smiling, at times with watery eyes.
However, All of those sights, as great as they are, were only the buttery goodness on my popcorn. To my surprise, those incredible visuals in my memory were overtaken by four simple words: “educate, entertain, and enlighten.”
We heard that multiple times on each tour, and it was the driving force behind the Warners. Each time I heard it, it felt like the first time, and I’d feel butterflies. The Warners did just that: “educate, entertain, and enlighten.” That is a tradition I want a part of.
Educate, Entertain and Enlighten. That’s all I want to do, and I sort of what I’ve been doing all along. I like correcting people; that’s a kind of educating. I like making people laugh; that’s entertainment. And I have a deep well of useless knowledge that I can shed some light on, or enlighten.
That’s something that can drive me every day: to find words that make a difference, to make someone laugh and learn from my mistakes, to give someone a better day thanks to something I’ve said.
I now feel excited about the future, even on bad days, like today. I have to go outside now and shovel snow by myself. Our dogs won’t even go outside in it and I don’t blame them, I hate the snow too. I wish I could be a dog.
I’m just not a big fan of cold weather anymore. And it seems unfair to the dogs too.
“You know it never snows in Southern California, hon……”
