Love and Heroin

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb.
Robert Browning

In between staving the fulfillment of my two latest addictions, which is the Netflixing of Season Two of Burn Notice and Season One of True Blood (Vampire Bill being the latest boy toy of choice in my middle-aged brain), I’ve been – gasp! – writing, inspired by the fact that North Korea just may make good on their threat, a sharp reminder that life is too short to whittle away time while waiting for the Muse to strike.

So I’ve returned to my notes for Avery and Jeremy’s story, another Cakian tale, jotted ideas for some children's books, penned some eulogies, and am writing some fiction and non-fiction tales inspired by a day spent above stormy Scituate seas with my sister, also an author. (Apologies for the blatant use of alliteration, but the fact remains that I was in Scituate and the sea was stormy.) We are determined to be on Oprah and between us probably have enough stories to get us there. If only Vampire Bill would stop interfering!

Mostly, though, I’ve been on a reading marathon, which includes much spiritual based non-fiction – Caroline Myss, Eckhart Tolle, Neale Donald Walsch and Don Miguel Ruiz, plus a lot of great fiction. Of course, the Sookie Stackhouse series is included in this list and some Megan Hart, who packs emotional punches throughout her simmering tales.

But last night I finished Alice Hoffman’s The Story Sisters. Ms. Hoffman is probably my favorite modern writer. She sees life through the same glasses that I wear and manages to capture that worldview with a pen. This book particularly resonates for me as the tale is about three sisters and the blood ties between them. Fundamentally, though, this is a book about true love. Not the romantic kind, although there is that, but Ultimate Love, that which fuels the universe, and that which saves us.

And this morning I finished Grunge is Dead: An Oral History of the Seattle Music Scene, which was a rare biography/history because it wasn’t written second-hand by a biased fan or outsider. Instead, the author, Greg Plato, compiled first-hand interviews and uses these comments to compile the book’s timeline, which takes us back to the seventies and brings us up to the so-called “grunge” explosion. This is a fascinating history for music fans in general and lovers of the Seattle music scene in particular. A worthy work and it’s a shame Chris Cornell of Soundgarden fame or the remaining Nirvana members did not participate. The book reads like a novel, craft-wise, with build-up, climax, dark moment and redemption, and the last quarter of the book is riveting, as dark material always is.

Like Elv in The Story Sisters, so many of the characters in Grunge deal with heroin addiction. Unfortunately, these are real people, and while the world knows of the tragic demise of Kurt Cobain, this book delves a little deeper into the influence of the music industry and heroin on his choice to end his life. The book continues with a chronicle Layne Staley’s slow death, heroin again, through the eyes of his friends and mother. All mothers should read these chapters. The book makes it clear that drug addiction can happen to ANYONE and maybe just being prepared for such a fate can help a parent prevent it. I don’t know. Incredibly sad.

I’ll never forget Rush Limbaugh’s laughter at Kurt Cobain’s death. How he stated, “All drug users should be put to death.” I was disappointed when he became addicted to drugs himself and did not meet such an end, but perhaps he is more compassionate now as a result of his own experience. I doubt it, but one can hope.

Both books, though, leave one with the absolute certainty that love does conquer all, most obviously in Hoffman’s tale, as fiction has a way of tying themes together in a tight little bow, but Grunge finds this truth as well, culminating in the professional success and spiritual growth of many of the survivors of that time period.

On the iPod: “Season of the Witch,” Donovan.

On the Nightstand: Intrusions by Ursula Hegi