My Extraordinary Ordinary Life

by Sissy Spacek

  All her life, my mother had believed that our minds are the builders of the universe. She never put it in those exact words, but she believed that we are responsible for our every thought, word, and action, both good and bad, and all that it sets into motion. She encouraged us to be positive and loving, and to find the good in all things. And if we believed deeply enough, we would see all those we’d loved, who had gone before us, again. She’d say, “Oh, I’ll see Mama, and Robbie, and the babies I lost.” While she lay dying, she could see, although she wasn’t seeing what was in the room. Instead she’d look up and say, “Ahhh,” with a big smile, and then reach out as if to hug someone. I sat beside her, and I knew what she was seeing. It was a beautiful transitional state. She was starting her new life. I hope that’s the way it is for me. I’m going to believe deeply that I’ll see her and all my loved ones again, and maybe that will make it so.

  I found out I was pregnant the week my mother died, but she never knew. She was already on her way, and I didn’t want to risk doing anything that would make it more difficult for her to leave this world. I just wanted her to be surrounded with love and to go peacefully.

  My mother died when I was thirty-one and she was sixty-two. That is my age now, as I write this. When I think of her, I remember the words of wisdom she left for me, and her favorite verses of scripture, which she wrote down in a little notebook. “Fix your thoughts on what is good and true and right,” she wrote. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” And best of all: “And now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

  Once I learned I was pregnant, I researched the subject as if I was preparing for a major film role. I read every book and article I could get my hands on. I wanted to change my diet to add more protein, so I started eating chicken and fish. I had been running every day for years; everything I read said I could continue whatever I had been doing, but not to start new sports. I assumed they were referring to show jumping and skydiving. I figured that jogging would be fine. My doctor, a handsome Beverly Hills obstetrician named Mark Surrey, had other ideas. He told me all the typical reasons I shouldn’t jog while pregnant. But after I showed him my research on the subject, he started jogging with me. I loved being pregnant—or maybe I just decided I was going to love it. I was lucky because I didn’t have morning sickness or any unhealthy cravings. I decided I was going to crave pineapple and watermelon, and so I did. For years after that, we’d go into any grocery store in the area, even in the winter, and the stock clerks would sidle up to me and whisper, “Ms. Spacek, we have watermelon in today!”

  The Coal Miner’s Daughter soundtrack had done well, with me and Beverly D’Angelo, who played Patsy Cline, doing the singing. Now I was offered the chance to make my own album. I recorded Hangin’ Up My Heart in Nashville with the amazing Rodney Crowell as producer. Rodney was a Texas boy from the rough side of the tracks in Houston, who made it big in Nashville as a singer-songwriter and a member of Emmylou Harris’s band. He felt like family the instant we met. Rodney brought in his wife at the time, Roseanne Cash, and his friend Vince Gill to sing on a few tracks. It was like a fantasy from my younger years come true. We even got a hit single on the country charts with a cover of “Lonely But Only For You.” Three decades later, if you search for my music on a website like CD Baby, you’re apt come up with an obscure electronic band that calls itself Sissy Spacek—ironically I’m sure—best known for a catchy number titled “Remote Whale Control.” (Could this be the new measure of immortality?) But making my record with Rodney Crowell was a high point in my career. While we were recording, he laid his hands on my pregnant belly and blessed my growing baby, hoping the sound waves she was receiving would make her a musician.

  “Okay, Rodney, we’ve marked this baby,” I said. And boy, was I right. Schuyler has grown up to be a fabulous singer-songwriter (if I may say so, myself!), and I can somehow picture her floating around, moving her tiny translucent fingers in time with Rodney’s guitar licks.

  Jack and I had decided on our baby’s name long before she was born. There is a town called Schuyler—pronounced “Skyler”—in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with a rock quarry where local artists get their stone for sculpting. We always loved the way the name sounded, and thought it would be a good name for a boy or a girl. We didn’t know of any other Schuylers then, so we may have started a trend.

  When I was eight months pregnant, in May of 1982, the producers of Missing asked me to appear at the Cannes Film Festival for the film’s debut. “I can’t go, I’m too far along,” I told them. But I agreed to check with my doctor. “You can go!” said Mark Surrey. “But only with your doctor. And that would be me!” We flew over on the Concorde, which had narrow seats and rattled like crazy when it broke the sound barrier, but we got there fast. As soon as we arrived in the South of France, we checked out all the hospitals near Cannes, just in case. Mark kept a close eye on me. When we arrived on the red carpet, I was with two gorgeous men, Jack Fisk and Mark Surrey, one on each arm. Mark was so handsome, he looked more like a movie star playing a doctor than an actual doctor. And since he was a bachelor, every night he would bring a different European model or actress to dinner, none of whom spoke any English. There was a lot of nodding and sign language going on.

  We stayed at the famous Hotel du Cap, which was always surrounded by hundreds of paparazzi. One morning I came out with Mark to go for a jog. We started running, and all the photographers thought they could easily keep up with a pregnant woman. They sprinted around us and then ran backward, snapping pictures, but I was too fast for them and they tumbled like dominoes over a hedge. We hopped over them, laughing like crazy, and continued on our run.

  That night Jack Lemmon won a well-deserved award for Best Actor, and Costa-Gavras won the Palme d’Or for best picture in the festival.

  We flew right back to Los Angeles, where Mark would be standing by to deliver when the time came. My dad was staying with us at the house in Topanga because he wanted to be close when Schuyler arrived. He was also good company. So we all waited for the baby. And waited. Finally, in early July, I started getting my first contractions. I had been through Lamaze class with Jack, and I had done a lot of reading, so I thought I knew exactly what to expect. I was wrong. It was shocking to me how much something could hurt without actually killing you. We called Mark, who told us to meet him in his office first thing in the morning, since the contractions were still pretty far apart. So Jack drove me to Beverly Hills, and of course we got caught in traffic. My dad was riding along in the backseat. He was so sweet, and he wanted to be in on this. But because he was sitting there, I couldn’t cuss! Every time that wall of pain hit me, I wanted to scream horrible things, but I couldn’t do it in front of my dad. I didn’t want to worry him, so I pretended I was fine.

  Mark took one look at me in his Beverly Hills office and sent us home. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to have this baby. He said to come back later, much later. I was so fit that when I got my first contractions, my whole body just flexed. I was just one mass of muscle, and that baby wasn’t going anywhere. Or so we thought. Wouldn’t you know, as soon as we got to Topanga, it was time to turn right around again and go back to the hospital, but this time in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  The hospital was surreal. I felt like I was descending into underground catacombs, with doors on each level clanking shut behind me, as if I might never get out of there. Women were screaming as they wheeled me to the maternity floor. It’s hard to believe there are so many people in the world, if they all get here like this! We checked into a private room, where Jack could stay with me overnight in a chair that folded out into a bed. My labor lasted the rest of the morning and into the evening. I just kept doing my Lamaze breathing and, in between, a little bit of cussing. Jack’s sister, Mary Lynch, was pregnant at the same time with her and David’s son, Austin. She came into the hospital to bring pillows for me when I was in hard labor, and I’ll never forget the look of
fear in her eyes. She knew she was up next, and this was what she was in for. So I smiled at Mary and didn’t make a peep, pretending everything was just fine. That’s when I did my true Academy Award performance—trying not to frighten my family.

  I wanted a natural birth without any drugs, but this was getting ridiculous. When they offered me an epidural, I took it. Suddenly I was calling out to strangers in the hall to come on into the room. We were having a party!

  Schuyler was born at 8:30 P.M. on July 8, 1982. She had red hair and brown eyes, and she was healthy. We kept her in the room that night, in a bassinet right next to the bed. My agent, Rick Nicita, and the producer Sean Daniel, both our good friends, stopped by the hospital room to bring flowers and good wishes. As a joke, Rick had a contract for Schuyler already drawn up from Creative Artists Agency, ready for her signature.

  I was completely exhausted, like I’d run a marathon, so as soon as everybody left, I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I scooted over to see the baby, and she was gone. I looked over at Jack in his fold-out bed and saw that he had put her on his chest like a puppy and they were both sound asleep.

  The next morning the hospital had a little class for all the new mothers. The first one said, “Hello, my name is Marie, I got here on Tuesday and had a baby boy. We’re going home in two days!”

  Next was Shirley. “We had our daughter three days ago, and we’re gonna be leaving tomorrow!” Then it was my turn.

  “Hi, my name’s Sissy. I had my daughter at eight-thirty last night and, oh—there’s Jack! Gotta go!”

  We couldn’t see the point in sticking around a hospital when we could go home and get some rest. But after we filled out the release forms and the nurse handed Schuyler to us, Jack and I turned to each other with the same thought: Yikes! You mean they’re just gonna let us take her?

  We had no clue how to be parents, but we figured it was now or never.

  As soon as I met our daughter, I realized I’d had no idea it was possible to love somebody so much. After we settled in at home, Jack quietly walked into the bedroom where I was holding Schuyler and caught me saying, “… and you’re all mine!” I’ve never lived that down.

  While I was pregnant, Jack gave me a book called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I threw it across the room “It’s my body and I’m not going to do that!” I snapped. Even though I was into natural foods, I had no intention of relinquishing control of my body to some tiny, demanding, ravenous human just because everybody else said it was such a great idea. Two and a half years later, the doctor said, “Relax, she’ll wean herself!” By then I was worried I’d be going to first grade with her … as her lunch box.

  I used to think that when you gave birth, that was the hardest part of it. But I was wrong—the hard things just keeping coming. You quickly realize that you have brought into the world a complete, separate human being who is not going to listen to you unless she wants to. When she was a toddler, I would dress Schuyler in boots and jeans and all the things I had to fight to wear when I was a little girl. She wanted to wear frilly dresses and paint her room pink! I was horrified. How could I have given birth to this child? I kept trying to bring out the tomboy in her until one day she looked at me and said, “Mom, I’m not a little you!”

  I finally got it. Children are just who they are. There are always going to be power struggles. Your job is to feed them, shelter them, give them room to grow, teach them manners, and make sure they don’t run in front of trucks or fight with sharp objects. The rest is loving, and letting go.

  … 14 …

  A few years before Schuyler was born, Jack and I bought a farm in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. There was an old white clapboard farmhouse and lots of outbuildings scattered over acres of rolling green pastures ringed by forest. At first we’d only stay in Virginia for a couple of months at a time. Jack and I would ride horses and swim and hike in the woods, amazed that we had a place where we could pick apples and rake leaves and watch foals being born. Then we’d go back to LA, which seemed less and less like paradise all the time. One day as we were heading to the airport, and our farmhands were waving good-bye to us, Jack turned to me and said, “You know, we’re paying them to live our lives.”

  After we learned I was pregnant, we decided that the farm would be a quiet, healthy place to prepare for our baby, so we started spending most of our time there. Schuyler was born in Los Angeles, but when she was five weeks old we were back on a plane, headed to Virginia. For a while we lived on both coasts.

  One afternoon on the farm, Jack and I noticed a pair of otters swimming in the pond behind our house. We could hardly believe it; we had never seen otters there before. We sat quietly on the back porch, careful not to disturb them, and were rewarded with the most enchanting performance. It was like watching an Esther Williams film choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Their movements were so perfectly synchronized. The otters swam side by side, doing the backstroke in lazy circles, then suddenly diving and somersaulting to the surface. They chuckled and squealed as they chased each other through the water like carefree children. We hoped they would stay forever, but they were only passing through. We watched as they scrambled up the bank, shook themselves off, and continued purposefully on their way—to who knows where. We never saw those little otters again, but knew we had witnessed pure joy.

  It may have been the moment we decided to move to Virginia for good. We wanted to live in a small town where our children could have roots. I wanted them to grow up with dogs and horses and dirt between their toes, like I did. And I needed a place where I could live a real life among real people and not be tethered to the phone, waiting for my agent to call. Even though I had always tried to keep myself grounded, I’d seen how easy it is to get swallowed up by the “star maker machinery”—as Joni Mitchell put it—and spend your life trying to stay “king of the mountain.” I figured that if you heard your name being whispered all the time, pretty soon you’d start hearing it whispered even when nobody was whispering. I didn’t want that. The parts in films that interested me were never the glamorous characters, but ordinary people. I wanted to live and raise my children in a place where I could know the name of the neighborhood grocery clerk, and host my daughters’ birthday parties, and stretch my bare feet on my own grassy lawn. The hills and piney woods around our farm in Virginia reminded me of the place where I grew up, and it felt like home.

  Our decision to move east seemed even wiser when we got back to the house in Topanga and discovered we had been robbed. The place was ransacked and my guitars were stolen—including my Martin twelve-string that I’d already saved once on the streets of New York. But thank goodness, my mother had visited before she got sick and said, “Let’s clean your silver and wrap it up and put it in the attic. If somebody breaks into your house, at least they won’t get your silver.” I should have put my guitars up there, too.

  We were kind of spooked after the burglary. And we’d begun to notice that little things were missing from around the house. One night we heard a commotion in the back and thought for sure someone was breaking in. We shouted out, but the racket didn’t stop. So we tiptoed quietly and followed the noise to the laundry room, and saw a big bag of cat food being tugged through the kitty door. When we looked out the window, we started to laugh. There was a little raccoon with his foot braced against the door, trying to pull the bag outside. I said, “Oh my God, Jack, now they’re coming in pint-size! We’re getting robbed by raccoons!”

  Not long after that, the phone rang and Jack picked it up. “I’m calling about the Harley-Davidson motorcycle that you have advertised in the LA Times,” the caller said.

  Jack started to tell him, “Oh, you must have the wrong number …” but before he could finish, a deep voice barked, “Get off the line, this call’s for me!” This was strange because we weren’t on a party line. When we called the phone company, they figured that someone living nearby had probably worked as a lineman and h
ad climbed up the pole and tapped into our phone. We guessed it had to be one of the motorcycle gang members living down the street. We also discovered he’d run up a bill for more than $3,000 in one month while we were away. It was the last straw. In the fall of 1982 Jack put the house up for sale and we started packing.

  I had spent so much time in the public eye that I needed a sanctuary, a place where nobody could see me from the road while I was walking around in my pajamas, watering the garden. The farm gave me that solitude. But when we wanted visitors, we didn’t have to go that far. Our next-door neighbors, Hugh and Winkie, lived at a farm called Highground, where they trained and “finished” some fine Thoroughbred horses on the mineral-rich grass of the Piedmont. When Hugh wanted to visit, he’d just trot on over. He descended from a bloodline almost as rare as some of his horses, but he liked nothing better than riding around on a tractor all day with a can of Budweiser in his hand. Hugh and Winkie were just two of the dozens of incredible characters we met in our new hometown.

  The first person we met was Magruder Dent, our real estate lawyer. Mac might have stepped right out of a Southern novel. He looked like a country squire and had a mind like Clarence Darrow. He had a wry sense of humor, too, and was known to greet newcomers with a friendly “Who the hell are you?” (Although he never said that to us.) Once you got past the feigned gruffness, Mac was a courtly, warm, and very wise man. His wife, Posy, was also remarkable. She was tall and athletic, with sharp blue eyes, and a ferocious curiosity about the world. Posy loved entertaining and filled her house with writers and artists and colorful local characters—like the woman who claimed to be the long-dead Russian princess Anastasia, and the elderly man who only dressed in safari clothes and lived half the year in Kenya, where he left his Land Rover chained to a tree. (Posy’s choice of guests probably inspired Mac’s standard greeting.) I admired Posy most of all for her tenacity and courage. One terrifying afternoon Posy was driving her two very young grandsons around her farm and left them strapped in their car seats in the back of her Jeep while she got out to open a gate. When she turned around, she saw that one of the boys had climbed into the driver’s seat and the Jeep was rolling down a hill toward a deep pond. She was in her late sixties, but she sprinted after the car and reached it just as it plunged into the water and sank. Posy dove in after it. She pulled one boy out of the Jeep and then dove in after the other one. Posy saved both of her grandchildren that day, and there’s no doubt that she would have drowned herself before she gave up on rescuing those boys.