My Extraordinary Ordinary Life

by Sissy Spacek

On the way to the hospital, we called the best orthopedic surgeon in town and alerted him we were on our way. Dr. Frank McCue was responsible for saving Jack’s hand after an accident with a high pressure paint sprayer, and he’d set several of my broken toes. (He was the go-to guy for injured appendages.) As Schuyler was taken out of the van, Jack called to Sue, “Park the van!” A dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, Sue was unfamiliar with driving large vehicles. But she had a job to do, so she forged ahead. Just as she was pulling into the underground parking garage, someone came running out, waving their arms for her to stop. That’s when she heard the crunch and realized she was taking off the top of the van.

  By the time we got to the hospital, I was feeling so queasy that I was ready to faint. After they had calmed Schuyler down and given her morphine for the pain, they whisked her away to surgery. She was lying down in the operating room and I was lying down in the waiting room. When the doctors came out after the surgery, Jack and I jumped up, hoping to get to see her. The doctor said, “She’s asking for …” “Me?” I interrupted. “No, she’s asking for Sue.” “Sue?” I said. “She barely knows Sue!” Sue stepped forward and offered an explanation: “I’ve been telling her stories all day. That’s why she wants me.” “Sure, sure, go ahead,” I said. But I was thinking, Hey, I gave birth to her. Doesn’t that count for anything?

  Dr. McCue came by to see us and told us Schuyler was doing fine. The arm was not broken, but it was seriously dislocated and would be in a cast for several months. Good news. My stomach was starting to settle down and I wasn’t feeling quite so faint. Then the anesthesiologist came over to give his report, and he recognized me and started chatting away about his brief career in the movie business. He said that before studying medicine, he had worked in the art department on a couple of films but had decided to change professions after a disaster on one film he’d worked on. Jack took a closer look at his face and then said, “Oh, I remember you now! You’re the one who ruined my set! I fired you!”

  The doctor was the person who’d worked on Phantom of the Paradise and who’d used water-soluble caulking on the skylight, which collapsed, ruining the set and delaying the filming. Jack still hadn’t quite gotten over it. And now this same guy had put our daughter under for surgery. We were just praying he was a better anesthesiologist than he was a carpenter!

  I confess that I have always been a fainter—it’s a condition that runs in the family; my father also had it. I’m told it’s an oversensitive vasovagal response to different triggers, such as pain, surprise, or watching your six-year-old have lidocaine injected into her gashed eyebrow. (But that’s another story.)

  My most famous fainting episode took place during a dinner party at the farm. I had the table set and candles lit and a beautiful bowl of pasta and fresh tomato sauce was ready to serve. We were just sitting down to dinner on the porch with a table full of guests when I saw a mangy stray cat that had gotten into the house jump up onto the kitchen counter and head straight for the turkey that was fresh out of the oven. I was hoping no one else saw it, and I quickly excused myself and rushed into the kitchen to remove the cat. As I hurried through the door, I smashed my foot into the doorjamb and felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot up through it, but I shook it off and grabbed the cat. Then I limped back to the table and sat down. The next thing I remember was waking up on the floor with a pillow under my head, both girls staring down at me, and hearing Jack’s voice outside a dark red veil covering my eyes. Jack helped me up, and I apologized to our guests as he walked me up the stairs to bed.

  “Jack!” I whispered. “My eyes are burning and I can’t see!”

  “It’s okay, Sissy,” Jack said mildly. “You just fainted into the pasta sauce.”

  I’d broken my toes before, but this was a bad one. My toe went sideways instead of straight ahead. I’d broken it in half. So Jack took me to see our ol’ friend Dr. McCue to have it set. I was supposed to fly to New York early the next morning to meet with a Dutch director about a film he wanted to do with me, and I really didn’t feel up to the trip. But a broken toe didn’t seem like a good enough excuse to cancel the meeting. I told my doctor about it and he said, “Look, it’s a bad break, but if it would make you feel better, why don’t you just tell the director you broke a bone in your foot, and ask him to come down to the farm?” To make it more convincing, the doctor put on a full lower leg cast.

  Sure enough, the director agreed to meet me at the farm. As soon as he arrived, he was helping me hobble around in my cast, serving himself tea, and being a complete gentleman. There were torrential rains that day, but we had a lovely time out on the covered porch, talking about his film, while Madison, who was about two at the time, played nearby. The porch was wet from all the rain, and all of a sudden I saw her slip and fall on her back all the way down a flight of stone steps. I jumped out of my chair, sprinted across the porch and down the stairs, and scooped my screaming daughter into my arms. The director almost had a heart attack. He looked at me quizzically. I was hoping he had read those stories about mothers suddenly developing superhuman strength when their children are in danger. But I think he probably just thought I was some kind of freak.

  And Madison was fine.

  … 15 …

  As soon as we moved to Virginia, the entertainment media decided I must have retired. I couldn’t convince them otherwise, so I just kept on working. But after I had children, my choices were even more careful. I only wanted to make films that mattered to me, or with directors or actors I’d always wanted to work with. And when I went on location, the whole family came along with me.

  Gerri and I would fly to the location a month or so before filming began. We’d find a house to rent and then visit the local schools to find out which of their best teachers were out on maternity leave. We’d interview them and then hire a teacher who could bring her baby with her while she tutored the girls for a few months. We’d set up a classroom in the living room and usually would have classes in the mornings and take field trips in the afternoons. We brought the girls’ bikes and pets and toys to make it feel like home.

  After a string of serious films, it was are relief to do a Southern comedy like Crimes of the Heart in 1985. Of course my character, Babe, tries to stick her head in the oven and kill herself, but not before realizing how hungry she is and eating some day-old popcorn on the stove. I got a great note about her from the director, Bruce Beresford. He told me to play the character straight; it made her so funny. I also asked Beth Henley the Mississippi playwright who wrote the script, “What can you tell me about Babe?”

  “Well,” she said, “Babe is the kind of girl who plans a big dinner party, has a gorgeous centerpiece, a fabulous outfit, and sets the table beautifully, but forgets to put the roast in the oven.”

  “Oh, I know her!” I laughed. “I am her!”

  The scuttlebutt in Hollywood was that the director was going to have his hands full with so many major female stars in one production. Who was going to be the biggest diva? But Jessica Lange, Diane Keaton, Tess Harper, and I defied the industry stereotypes by getting along like, well, sisters. There were no divas on this set. Usually the cast members are given their own motor homes as dressing rooms. But on Crimes of the Heart, which was filmed on location outside Wilmington, North Carolina, the production took over a house next door to the set and fixed it up for us. We had the hair and makeup department and wardrobe right in the back of the house. Each of us had a bedroom and bath, we shared the kitchen and a television in the living room, and we all hung out together like a family—which is what our characters were supposed to be.

  One day, Diane came into the house and saw Schuyler standing in the living room with her brand-new doctor kit. Without saying a word, Diane dropped to the floor, grabbing her knee and moaning, “Oh, my leg, my leg! Is there a doctor in the house?” Schuyler was only three years old, and feeling kind of shy. She stood there like a soldier, clutching her bag. Diane looked up at Schuyler, then looked at her bag. “Are you
a doctor?” she whispered. Schuyler nodded solemnly, then kneeled down and opened her kit. Before long, Diane’s leg was covered in bandages, and she had taken a sugar pill for the pain. It was a sweet, serendipitous moment.

  I never realized how important my girlfriends were to me until I moved away from them. I hadn’t been at the farm too long when I read somewhere that it takes seven years to develop a great friendship. This put me right smack in the dumps. It was before iChat and Skype, and really even before computers. Occasionally one of my girlfriends would visit from New York or LA, but eventually she would have to go home and I’d be right back where I started—lonesome. But as time went by and I got into the routines of life, I began to make friends in Virginia. Then one day I woke up and realized that my dance card was full. I had some of the most wonderful girlfriends ever. And I met them in the most usual places—the grocery store, the school pickup line…

  Diane (not Keaton, a different Diane) and I met in a grocery store. We were standing next to each other in line, both with little babies, and we started chatting. I had several hundred dollars’ worth of groceries and diapers and household supplies in my cart. When I pulled out my credit card to pay, the cashier shook her head and told me they only took cash or checks. I had neither. I looked back at the fifteen shoppers behind me in line and I was near tears, thinking about putting everything back. Diane said, “Don’t worry, I’ll write you a check.”

  “You will? But we’ve just met.”

  She looked at me levelly. “Oh, I think you’re good for it.”

  We’ve been friends ever since.

  I met Aggie when she broke through the press line at the Virginia Special Olympics held on the side of a mountain in Wintergreen, Virginia. I had Schuyler in a backpack and it was snowing, but that didn’t stop Aggie. She leaned close to me and said quietly, “I was wondering if you could give me an interview?” I smiled and explained that I wasn’t giving any. To which she replied, “Oh, it’s just a tiny paper in Nelson County. Nobody reads it anyway.”

  She was so disarming and open that I broke my own rule and gave her the interview. She became another good friend. She had been a competetive swimmer, and she taught both of our girls to swim. I also thought Aggie would be a great match for Barclay, the writer/roofer/prospector, and am happy to report that they married and raised two fine daughters on a farm they call Rock Bottom.

  Aggie was a member of the Walnut Mountain Study Group, a collection of friends who got together to study homeopathic medicine and medicinal herbs. We met on my porch every month, just like my mother had her girlfriends over for coffee. I have been interested in herbal remedies, alternative medicine, and healthy living since I was in my early twenties. As a kid, my idea of a balanced meal was adding a pickle to my cheeseburger, fries, and Coke. But shortly after I moved to California, I gave up the occasional cigarette, became a vegetarian, and started running—all in one day. In for a penny, in for a pound, as my mother would say. I had heard a lot of older people joking that if they’d known they were going to live so long, they would have taken better care of themselves. I was determined to start early, and I did.

  Instead of stopping by for a cup of coffee, my girlfriends join me for long walks around the farm. We share ideas and our favorite news stories, and sometimes even talk politics—but there’s no gossip allowed. We laugh sometimes and I call them “church walks,” because nature is my sanctuary. I can almost hear music in the leaves on a windy day. And if I stand very still, I can hear the sound of geese napping their wings as they fly overhead. The blue sky and the smell of fresh-mowed fields are a tonic for me, and fill me up like a prayer.

  I’ve had many good friends walk with me over the years. My friend Mary is a fine arts photographer who looks like Grace Kelly and has a belly laugh you can hear across a crowded room. We got to know each other when she interviewed and photographed me with Schuyler for her book Mother. Mary always documents what’s going on in her life, and motherhood was it at the time. Back then she and her husband, David, were raising three rambunctious boys, and Mary had become an expert. Mother was a follow-up book to Giving Birth, which I’m kind of glad I didn’t see before having any babies. Ignorance is bliss, in this case. Mary grew up in Virginia Beach, and she spent her childhood surfing and beachcombing. One day she found a small, lifeless shark on the sand and threw it around her shoulders and carried it home, cheek to cheek, to show her little brothers. When her mother saw it, she said, “Mary, take that disgusting thing back to the beach.” So Mary walked it back and tossed it in the water… and it swam away. My brother Robbie would have really liked her.

  Whenever Mary arrives for one of our walks, she laughs and says, “C’mon, Sissy! Let’s go count our blessings.”

  One night in early 1988, Mary, David, Jack, and I met for dinner at La Hacienda, a local Mexican spot with Formica tables and velvet sombreros nailed to the wall. I said to them, “We have some great news!”

  “We have some, too!” said Mary,

  “Ours is better!” Jack said.

  “Nope, ours is better!” David said.

  We all should have known something was up because Mary and I both skipped the 99-cent margaritas. Finally everybody blurted it out at once—we were both pregnant. We had found out on the same day.

  After three boys, we were all praying Mary was having a girl. I was just happy to be having another baby. One child changes your life so much, you might as well have more. Who knows, Jack and I loved being parents so much we might have had a dozen if we had started sooner.

  You would think we’d have been better prepared this time around. One September morning, while we were out feeding the horses, I felt my first contraction. I looked at my watch. Jack went inside to take a shower. While I was taking off my boots, another one came. And then another.

  “Jack, I think it’s time to go!” I called into the shower.

  “The contractions have to be twenty minutes apart,” he called back.

  “But they’re two minutes apart.”

  He was toweling himself off. “No, we don’t have to worry until they’re twenty minutes apart,” he said.

  “Jack, I think it goes the other way....”

  While we were racing to the hospital, I called Mary. She still wanted to document all of her girlfriends’ deliveries. And I wanted her there.

  Jack and I had expected the contractions to go on forever like last time, but I barely made it to the hospital. There is nothing more ferocious than a woman in labor, especially the second time around. I wasn’t worried about making noise this time, and I was mean as a snake. Some poor young nurse came in to give me an injection and he couldn’t find my vein. His hands were shaking like crazy. “Get out of my room!” I yelled, “And send somebody who knows how to give a shot!” He stumbled out of the room, terrified.

  Mary arrived just in time. When the doctor walked in, she had her scalpel ready.

  “Put that down!” Mary barked like a drill sergeant. “Leave her alone! She doesn’t need it.”

  “Yeah! Listen to her!” I screamed.

  What made the scene even funnier was that Mary was nine months pregnant, standing up on two chairs, trying to balance herself while yelling instructions and photographing the birth with a large Nikon camera. The nurses were beside themselves; they didn’t know whether to help her or me.

  The baby came moments later, and there was no need for any intervention. After an hour or so I put my blue jeans back on, Jack scooped up our new daughter, and we all drove home. We named her Virginia Madison Fisk.

  While Mary was photographing the delivery, she felt her own baby begin to drop. And a few days later she gave birth to a girl, Natasha, who would become Madison’s best friend.

  (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Kay Halsey for performing her duties with patience and professionalism while under intense battlefield-like conditions … ambushed by two enormous, wild-eyed pregnant women swearing and shouting orders.)

  Madison was
the spitting image of her father, with brown eyes and a mop of dark hair. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Schuyler and her cousin Austin considered her their personal plaything, so she had to grow up tough. Jack was a wonderful father, but like most men, he was a little more lax around our girls than I was, and I always held my breath when I left them alone with him. My fears were confirmed when he showed me a video he’d made when Madison was a few months old. She was a pudgy baby and Schuyler, who was about six, was a peanut. But there, on tape, is little Schuyler carrying around and jiggling her baby sister, who is slowly sliding out of her arms. Then she hoists Madison up on the bed, leans all her weight on her, and coughs a wet, rumbly cough right in her face. It was like watching a Stephen King movie for mothers.

  Somehow Madison survived her infancy, and grew to be a bright, precocious toddler. She always had a special relationship with her dad. One morning she came downstairs for breakfast and saw that Jack had shaved his beard. She had never seen him without a beard before.

  She looked at him closely and asked, “What’s your name now?”

  “It’s still Dad,” he said.

  Another time he wanted to get her up from a nap. She was still half-asleep and in her dream when she opened her eyes and said, “Did you know Beethoven was also a person?”

  I always told Madison and Schuyler what my mother had told me: that the kingdom of heaven is within. When I did, I would place my hands over my heart. One Sunday morning Jack and I took the girls to the lovely old stone church down the road from the farm. Madison, who was about three, was listening intently to the minister’s sermon. “Where is God?” the minister asked. “Where is God!?” Suddenly Madison piped up, loudly enough for all the congregation to hear, “God is in your chest!” she said.

  I had to laugh. My mother would have been proud.

  Madison and Natasha were like me and Vickie Johns, always riding horses and getting into mischief together. Madison had a bay Welsh pony she called Treasure and Natasha had a little chestnut Arabian named Mr. Pie. They taught their horses how to rear up and to jump hedges. They were such natural riders that I would let them go off on adventures, like riding bareback on the trails in the woods around the farm.