While I didn’t watch your entire interview with Barbara Walters last Friday, I did catch a portion of it–the part where you talked about this whole SEC, FBI mess being an “unwelcome hiatus” in your life–and that small segment has prompted me to write you.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I found that very revealing and, to be truthful, rather ominous. I didn’t memorize your exact words, but to paraphrase, you said that at your age an unwelcome, unexpected hiatus such as the one you feel trapped in now while waiting for the outcome of your trial is very difficult because you can’t afford a hiatus at this stage of your life. Gosh, I don’t know where to begin. Part of me envisions God stomping around saying, “Well, excuse me!” in a dead-on imitation of Steve Martin. Another part of me wants to kindly suggest you look up the Dalai Lama and sit at his feet for the next…well, however long you can, although I’m sure they’d let him visit you in jail if things come to that.
Let me try to hit some middle ground here. There are no hiatuses in life. Remember that great John Lennon line, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans?” Plans don’t teach us or transform us; spread sheets and projections for the next 10 years of our careers don’t teach our hearts to be bigger and softer. Making it onto the Forbes List (although there is nothing wrong with that and who wouldn’t want to be on it?) doesn’t unearth the person we are supposed to be in this world. Life does that–if we let it. Sometimes the greatest opportunities for growth and change and learning come in the darkest times. If you don’t know that, then I guess the tendency is to perceive dark times as blank spaces, empty holes, imposed breaks along the course you’ve mapped out for yourself.
I’m pretty sure most people feel that it’s because you’re famous that you’ve been targeted on charges that you obstructed justice and lied to investigators about your sale of ImClone shares. Whether they like you or not, I’m betting almost everyone would say, ‘Well, where are the trials for Ken Lay and all the other CEOs accused of ripping off small investors and ruining their lives?’ I’m also fairly certain that most people wouldn’t have an absolutely clear idea of what insider trading is. To be perfectly blunt, Ms. Stewart, I think you just pissed off the federal government after they caught you–you know, by failing to meet with them, offering stories that appeared false to them…
The point is: Life has brought you to this place. It seems to me that you have a great opportunity to teach people something really important–something beyond folding napkins and setting a nice table, or mulching the garden, or baking a killer chocolate cake. What if people saw you take this segment of your life as the learning passage it’s meant to be, rather than flicking it off as a hiatus? What if they saw you stop in your tracks and say, “Wow, I thought building a billion dollar company at breakneck speed was what I was put here for, but maybe there’s more. Maybe right now I’m supposed to just stand still, look inward and grow in ways I never did before.” You know, a little introspection never hurt anyone. You’ll still be able to cook circles around all of us when you come back from that journey.
Tolstoy said, “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” Put down the spatula; forget making the bed with your own color-coordinated sheets. Start with losing the word “hiatus” and then just throw caution and control to the wind. Ask what life is trying to teach you and open your arms wide for the answer. I’m no expert in this field, but it just seems to me that if you call a potentially transformational time in your life a “hiatus” you are seriously missing the point of this movie we call Life.
If you still need things to fill up this time, might I suggest listening to Warren Zevon’s last CD–the one he made as he was dying? Talk about squeezing as much life as you can from every morsel of time left to you. In “Keep Me In Your Heart” he sings, “There’s a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done. Keep me in your heart for awhile.” Life really is short and in the end it’s all about hearts. Listen to his version of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” You know what I think? At Heaven’s door, God isn’t going to be asking if we made the perfect souffle, he’s going to be asking if our hearts broke free and sang as loud as they could.
Yours truly,
Patti Davis.
