Friday, May 23, 2008

Black And White In A Grey World

Did you watch the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy? A little off the wall, but that’s Grey’s and the story line was much more reminiscent of the original episodes where things actually happen, instead of the characters just whining and sleeping with each other.

Whining is acceptable if it’s a stepping stone, but if you’re so stuck in sour grapes that your feet are turning permanently purple, it’s time to break free from the vines of vino loco and take a look at the rest of the vineyard.

“The Big Picture” was the theme for the Grey’s finale last night. Meredith broke free from her misguided images of her mother’s suicide attempt years ago by realizing that her mother, the extraordinary surgeon, wouldn’t have slit her wrists if she really wanted to die, she would have cut her carotid artery. Ok, that works, but I thought my Meredith realization guess was better.

I thought Meredith should have realized that if her mother really wanted to die, Meredith wouldn’t be tangled up in the gruesome images simply because she wouldn’t have been there in the first place. She was her mother’s safety net, but Meredith can’t see the big picture because she’s not seeing the whole movie, she’s stuck rewinding a few horrific frames over and over.

That’s how I would have written it, but hey, I’m no big time Hollywood writer.

This finale came at the right time for me. I admit that lately, the fast forward button on the VCR in my mind hasn’t been working right. I’ve been stuck with rewind, playing over and over scenes from my life that I much rather not watch repeatedly, and for some reason, I can’t just turn the TV off.

Thanks to Meredith and Dr. Bailey, I realized that I’m not yet seeing “the big picture” of these events. I’m still watching them as individual episodes in black and white instead of into a full feature film in living color. I need to break free from the vines that tangle me up and find my yellow brick road.

To put it a little less metaphorically, I need to get off my ass.

I told you all a while back that I want to take the leap from blog entries to an actual book with a fabulous cover. I’m not going to give away my topic, but I’ve been struggling trying to write about it because if I make a little move in any direction, the vines that entangle me tighten and cut into me a bit and it hurts.

But, I can sit still, do nothing and be stuck watching black and white reruns or I can bandage up a few scratches and face my lions and tigers and bears.

I may not be a Hollywood writer, but I am the writer and director of my own movie. I can influence the outcome and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

While this work happens behind the scenes, we will continue with our regularly scheduled RANTastic programming.

Oh, my!

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