The Cold Shoulder
By 1987, I'd rejected most political concerns, and my life was divided between my interest in biomedical research and recording with Starship. As it turned out, though, my career was about to come to an abrupt close.
It happened like this: one of the songs on the last Grace-included Starship album was scheduled to be a duet between Mickey Thomas and myself. At least, we'd practiced it that way in rehearsal. But when I went to the studio to put down my harmony part, Mickey had already done it as a solo piece. He felt that because his wife was having a baby and the lyrics alluded to children, he had a personal connection to the song. Seemed reasonable. It also seemed like a convenient way to skirt the duet process.
I didn't resist. Understanding both Mickey's desire to be sovereign and feeling a growing urge to get more involved in protecting the rights of my four-footed—and feathered—friends, I'd already decided to leave the group when the contract was finished. Then, unfortunately, a case of bilateral capsulitis, better known as frozen shoulder, stopped me one job short of my final scheduled gig with Starship. The concert was to be in Southern California, but several weeks before the date, while we were still in Marin, my left shoulder had begun to give me trouble. Over a period of a couple of weeks, I'd lost so much movement, I only had a ten-inch range of motion. Since I didn't have maids, hairdressers, wardrobe people, or any other cosmetic assistance, it would have been impossible for me to pack, do my hair, lift suitcases, etc. So once again (this time for “legitimate” reasons), I pulled out before the completion of a tour.
I underwent six months of physical therapy, which involved having my arm shoved around in painful positions. It was unnecessary torture; it turns out they could have used the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine to pinpoint the problem at the onset. When I finally had the MRI done, it became clear that I needed a serious shoulder manipulation. “Put her under anesthesia and jam the damn arm up over her head to break the adhesions” was more or less what the docs said.
It worked.
For a period of several months I was stationary, healing my shoulder, making dolls out of clay, reading biomedical reports, and staying home in our Mill Valley house. Skip was often on the road with various bands, doing lights or production. When he came home, we went to alcohol-abuse counseling together.
When I picked him up at the airport after he'd completed his rock-and-roll tours, we usually hugged and greeted each other in the normal friendly way, but this one particular day, he held on to me longer and harder than ever before. I dismissed it, thinking he was just especially delighted to be home this time, but I was wrong. It was the clinging of sadness because he had a secret. A friend had told him that to confess would bring a kick in the head from Yours Truly, but Skip felt he should tell me the truth and accept the consequences.
The “other woman” was twenty-three years old and looked like a prom-queen poster child. I remembered that when I'd first met her some time before, I figured she was going to be trouble for some poor woman whose man had tired of his existing relationship. I just didn't know that woman would be me.
Skip confessed he'd been “seeing” her off and on for about six months, but that it was over now and he wanted to try to make our union work. Our circle of friends was almost exclusively made up of people in the twelve-step programs, and since this young woman was also a part of AA, I figured everybody knew about the affair but me. Shit, here comes the inner AA drama routine of people taking sides, sponsors shooting advice all over the place, and unctuous sympathy games for poor old Grace. I felt hurt and defeated, but I had to nip the melodramatic gossip show in the bud.
As soon as Skip had finished his confession, I went to a very large AA meeting where I knew I'd find her. I also knew I could address her there, in a scene that I could use to my advantage. Accustomed to being in front of large crowds, I placed myself in a standing position below the podium and beckoned her to join me there, in front of the four hundred or so seated individuals who were waiting for the meeting to start. She looked dubious as she walked to the front of the room; Skip hadn't filled her in that he was going to tell me about their trysts.
I gave her a short embrace to let everyone know there'd be no fireworks display and calmly told her I didn't want any animosity. After all, I'd done the same thing to Paul. The rock-and-roll lifestyle was full of interchanging couples, I conceded, and even though it made me sad, I understood the predicament. The lack of hair-pulling excitement was exactly what I wanted—no fun for the “audience.” They now knew that I knew, and that I wasn't going to lose it all over the “other woman” and she wasn't going to go off into the sunset with Prince Not-So-Charming.
Skip suggested couple's therapy, to which I agreed, but it only served to reveal he'd had several other one-nighters on the road. Then, one afternoon in L.A., when I was having some coffee in a hotel room, reading magazines and feeling pretty peaceful, my heart started beating as if I'd just run a four-minute mile. I generally don't sit around and freak out for no reason. I knew it was out of character, so I was paralyzed with fear. I just couldn't figure out what was going on or what to do about it.
“Grace,” I said, “get yourself into the car and go to Cedars Sinai ER. It's only a mile away, you can do it, just get up out of the chair.” I was absolutely terrified, but I made it to the hospital and asked them what was wrong.
“You're having a panic attack,” they told me.
Panic? Over what?
“Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.”
Sometimes I do what I'm told.
After several visits at $250 an hour, the shrink said, “You have a broken heart.”
Aww.
He was referring to the Skip/mistress thing. So tell me something I don't already know. The doctor was speaking figuratively, but I wasn't figuratively sick. I thought the actual heart might be a cause for concern, and after getting an echocardiogram, I confirmed that, indeed, I had a problem—a common enough condition called mitral valve prolapse, which manifests itself in symptoms similar to a panic attack. So the shrink got a thousand bucks for his melodramatic call on something that was, in fact, a physical impairment the doctors could literally see on a monitor.
“Careful of the stimulants,” was the admonition from the cardiac specialist. Like the coffee I'd been drinking in the hotel. So it wasn't all Skip's fault. From a childhood diagnosis that I had a heart murmur, I'd simply graduated to mitral valve prolapse. Pomp and circumstance.
Skip and I continued to live together in a brother-sister configuration for another six years; it was hard for me to let go of a basically good man even if it was obvious we'd eventually separate. And I knew we'd separate as soon as I admitted to myself that the passion had disappeared. I've always been attached to the initial feelings of passion in a relationship. It's an energy that I still find so captivating, I can't imagine living without it. In fact, at the onset of a romance, I think about sex so much, it's surprising I can get my socks on. But as soon as my partner shows too much interest in a hardware store or a computer game, I turn off.
Unfortunately, when I'm without the absolute focus of passion that drives the human spirit, I'm pretty much just a bunch of functioning body parts. Without a particular man to occupy my attention, I can channel romantic energy into other areas, and I do channel it—into things as various as drawing, music, sewing, talking, writing, or studying biomedical research.
The idea that a relationship can survive based solely on respect and common interests is still beyond me. I can get respect from a Saint Bernard and common interest from a museum curator, so without passion, I'd rather live alone and be able to come and go whenever I feel like it.
Some people never grow up.
Just when I'm close to believing I'm a determined and focused type, I have to remind myself that most of the direction-shifting events in my life have come about when I was shuffling along without a road map.
I didn't grow up with an intense dream of being a singer; I just happened to see Jefferson Airplane at a night-club and it looked like a good way to make a living and goof off at the same time.
I didn't take political science in college and think, “I'm going to work for liberal agendas.” The liberal view of social organization just happened to coincide with my own sensibilities.
I didn't think, “Okay, now is the right time to write an autobiography.” A friend of mine, Brian Rohan, and my agent, Maureen Regan, almost bodily forced me to talk to publishers, and I just happened to enjoy the process once I got started.
So many things have seemed to crawl into my lap at the right (and sometimes wrong) time, I get the impression that predetermination and an implacable genetic scorecard are running the puppet show. I'm enjoying the performance, but I often wonder how much control we do have over the seemingly open banquet of choices. Sometimes the best strategy seems to be to keep shuffling and hope for the best. Surprises —both bad and good—turn up in the most unlikely places.
An example. Long before the mitral valve prolapse episode—in 1973, to be exact—I had a pain in the chest on the left side, and when I consulted the docs they suggested I go to a shrink.
Funny how often that suggestion keeps popping up in my case, isn't it?
Anyway, I went to the head shrink at the University of California. After four sessions that included the standard queries regarding family, emotional stress, sexual habits, etc., he glanced down at the floor where my purse was bulging.
“How much does that weigh?” he asked.
I picked it up and handed it to him.
“About twenty pounds,” he said, hefting it, “and if you're right-handed, you probably wear this hanging off your left shoulder. Right?”
I nodded.
“Try taking some of the stuff out of it, or wear it on your right shoulder for a while. You're not nuts, you're just over-loaded.”
I followed his instructions and the pain stopped immediately. So sometimes, if you have a sore throat, a helpful podiatrist might tell you to take your foot out of your mouth.