She wanted so to be tranquil, to be someone who took walks in the late-afternoon sun, listening to the birds and crickets and feeling the whole world breathe. Instead, she lived in her head like a madwoman locked in a tower, hearing the wind howling through her hair and waiting for someone to come and rescue her from feeling things so deeply that her bones burned. She had plenty of evidence that she had a good life. She just couldn’t feel the life she had. It was as though she had cancer of the perspective.
– Carrie Fisher (Oct 21, 1956 – Dec 27, 2016) from Postcards From the Edge
From The Honesty of Carrie Fisher by Lawrence Downes:
Who would have predicted that this product of Hollywood inbreeding — Ms. Fisher called herself that — would have turned celebrity dysfunction into such a memorable body of writing? Her semi-autobiographical novel “Postcards From the Edge,” and memoirs like “Wishful Drinking” and “Shockaholic,” are hilarious, bluntly beautiful and deserve as much lasting recognition as her contributions to the “Star Wars” franchise…And when she wrote about depression and addiction, she had a humaneness and directness that feel honest. Like her description of bipolar disorder:
“Imagine having a mood system that functions essentially like the weather — independently of whatever’s going on in your life. So the facts of your life remain the same, just the emotional fiction that you’re responding to differs. It’s like I’m not properly insulated.”
And here’s to her honesty: “I heard someone once say we’re only as sick as our secrets,” Ms. Fisher wrote in “Wishful Drinking.” “If that’s true, then this book will go a long way to rendering me amazingly well.”
Notes: Quote Source – Hidden Sanctuary. Photo: ABCnews.com