Unreasonable Optimism
I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly.
Flat on my back in rehab, I hadn’t been home long. Receiving constant oxygen therapy, nobody knew if I’d ever be able to care for myself again. I refused solid food, only accepting skim milk and protein shakes. My sister came to me with a heavy heart, completely unrelated to what was happening to me. The very last vestiges of my father’s empire were being broken down and sold off for cash. The dream was over. Until tonight, I didn’t realize she made a video of it as they moved out the palette racks, furniture, and family portraits.
Vision is so vitally important in life and in business. Twenty-seven years after his death, my father’s vision was all but extinguished. If I were going to die, this would be a good time for it. At that moment, my sister might have been willing to go with me.
An unexpected, completely illogical thing happened. Unreasonable optimism in the face of destruction. The next morning, I sat up by myself for the first time since I landed in the hospital.
My sister and I were born into a world afire. Assassinations were surrounding us in Mississippi and America. Riots, hatred. In Europe and in Asia, we were losing ground to Russia and the Chinese quickly. We were slaves to Middle East oil. We were behind in the space race, but trying. Nineteen sixty-nine was the year of “burn baby burn.” It was also the year we landed on the moon.
Going into 1970, Mississippi was still struggling, but something unreasonable and illogical happened. Optimism. It grew organically out of our express desire not to die, not to give in to what was happening to us. Mississippi Camelot was born.
New York was bankrupt in 1970, but the New York High School for Performing Arts was growing in ways it never had before. By 1980, the most remarkable woman I ever knew moved to another school, and a movie about hope caught the attention of every teenager I knew.
Baby, look at me
And tell me what you see
You ain’t seen the best of me yet
Give me time, I’ll make you forget the rest
I got more in me
And you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hands
Don’t you know who I am?
Remember my name
Fame!
I’m gonna live forever
I’m gonna learn how to fly
High!
I feel it coming together
People will see me and cry
Fame!
I’m gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame
Fame!
I’m gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
“George Patton says they can take you for physical therapy at St. Catherine’s.”
A lifetime before, Daddy and I worked on the statement of purpose for St. Catherine’s. My contribution was pretty much invisible. Daddy knew I was mastering words. He just wasn’t sure about telling anybody. Daddy said George was the most important doctor in Jackson. To me, he was just a kid who played guitar at church. The doctor thing happened without my knowledge. Optimism. Unreasonable Optimism.
In my room at St. Catherine’s, they moved the bed so I could see out the door. A painting of red gladiolas hung on the wall opposite my door.
“Fredrika? See if you can tell who painted that.”
“Edward somebody. It’s hard to read.”
Getting me out of bed, into a wheelchair, and headed to rehab, I got close enough to read it myself. “Edwina Goodman.” A message from a dead friend. I was being watched over. Somewhere, I could feel Bill’s spirit too. I was aware that they died there. I decided not to.
Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Finding optimism in the face of destruction is the secret to life. Nobody in the world expected Mississippi to become more than it was in the thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties, but from somewhere inside us, we found something else: optimism.
Starting a School Supply business and a textbook depository in remarkably poor Mississippi seemed like such an unlikely idea. Most children in Mississippi didn’t even go to school. Childhood illiteracy was one of the things Mississippi was famous for. Selling books to illiterate people sounds like a horrible idea, and yet, somehow it worked. Unreasonable Optimism.
A young Methodist woman was tall and athletic. In a state where hardly anyone could read, she began writing stories. She bought boxes of paper and typewriter ribbons from my uncle on Capitol Street, then my grandfather, then my father. Optimism.
Medgar Evers was killed. Days later, I was born. Days later, Ed King was nearly killed. Days later, Eudora Welty, having won acclaim worldwide for her stories, began typing a story called “Where is That Voice Coming From?” On paper, she bought at the Office Supply Company. The way things were going, it could have cost her life. She didn’t care. Unreasonable Optimism.
Mississippi is not a rich place. Sometimes, we’re not a happy place, or even a reasonable place. We keep trying, though. We don’t give up.
Going into the cave, Doug Draper called. He’d been my psychologist since 1978. “Don’t give up, Boyd. Please don’t give up. I know you. I know what’s happening to you. Don’t give up.”
For a full minute, I didn’t say anything. Finally, I said, “I’m not giving up. I’m trying something different.”
I never allowed myself to heal. I went from one impossible task to another. “Healing is for bitches.” I thought. Going into the cave, I didn’t want anybody to see how little was left of me, especially my sister, especially her. I rolled the stone to cover the door to the cave, seeing only the eyes of her children as I blotted out the sun for almost two decades. As horrible and painful as that sounds, even that was unreasonable optimism.
Tonight, my sister posted a video about the end of Daddy’s vision. I thought a million words would come out. I’m pumping the lever to the well, but only a little is coming out.
Unreasonable optimism.
You aint seen the best of me yet.
I’m gonna make you forget the rest.
I can catch the moon in my hands.
Baby, remember my name!
