Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Turtle & The Fox

From the very moment I heard that Michael J. Fox had written a new book I wanted to read it. And I just started it today. It’s terrific, as was his first book, the memoir entitled Lucky Man.
This new one is called Always Looking Up, and continues on with the story of Fox’s experience with early onset Parkinson’s disease. Rather than being a chronological account, it is more topical, dealing with four major themes:
Work, Politics, Faith, and Family.
Early on there is a beautiful story of the very moment this Canadian-born [ had to say that there] actor decided to leave his successful career behind, retiring from his lead role in the sitcom Spin City.
It took place in the afternoon of the very last day of the twentieth century.
Michael and his family were snorkeling off St John’s in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Even though they had vacationed there before, many times, they had never yet encountered a sea turtle in the wild. But this afternoon, Michael spotted one, and proceeded to swim slowly behind it, “keeping a respectful distance.”

According to him, in that moment, “a switch had flipped.”
Oh, I love this part “When I finally emerged from the water, I kicked off my flippers, walked over to to where Tracy was toweling off the kids, grabbed a towel for myself, and informed her I was leaving the show.”
Wow!
There is only one thing that is cooler than this!
And that's her response.
She looked him in the eye, and uttered a single word.
“Good.”

-- The Foxes --
******

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A couple of years ago we paid a zillion dollars to go "swim with the dolphins" because I thought for SURE I would have some sort of epiphany or mind-meld or something with the dolphins. Alas, I did not. Obviously, I was barking up the wrong animal. I should have gone on a swim with the sea turtles! Maybe next year....

kingmonkey said...

Try swimming with a cat, Rhapsody. I guarantee it will change your life (or possibly your appearance).