Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries |
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Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in |
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The Writer's Gift and Reward This entry was posted on 12/13/2008 8:10 AM and is filed under Personally Speaking. Dear Anne Roiphe, Your daughter, Katie Roiphe, is a writer whose work I’ve long admired. But until recently I didn’t know that her mother was also an author of note. I’ve just read your memoir, “Epilogue”, so have come to know you well. As a lawyer and mediator, I learn about many aspects of the personal lives of my clients, but my insights are shallow. No way to really know what takes place in the head or heart of another, unless the other chooses to take off their protective armor, and few do. I think most of us fully reveal ourselves only to an intimate partner, if then. But you’ve done so, and written with stark honesty, using simple words and beautifully crafted phrases to tell your story, a great gift to your reader. Is it also your reward? When I read fiction, view films, I search that make-believe world for a person I can relate to. You mine your real world and allow me to experience it as well, to be invisible at your side and live some moments of your life, within the context of my own. On an early page, you describe the softness of your body as you look at it in a full length mirror, the looseness of the skin of your upper arms, sagging places where once you were taut and firm. Folds under your chin. Ah, yes. You write of the sadness of loss, the pleasure of birth. Yes. Beneath the covers, you reach across your bed seeking your no longer present husband, and your hours of sleep are over too soon. Yes. You say you and he talked in shorthand, left out whole paragraphs, but still you understood. Yes. After your husband died, you found it difficult to go to the store and buy the barest of necessities. I did not. You questioned how present to be in your grown children’s lives. I did not. You found it difficult to return to the discipline of your work. I did not. I admire the way you describe even apparently mundane events and then explore the emotions and thoughts that flowed, sometimes calming, sometimes haunting, bravely bringing your truth into the open for others to know. I felt validated by those of your thoughts I shared, connected to others, to you. More accepting of those foibles you too confess. And those thoughts not shared reveal my own way of coping with this new time of my life. As you disclose and define yourself, I’m better known to myself. In doing so, do you deepen your understanding of yourself as well? The writer’s reward? You say by writing you are able to hold yourself erect and know you cannot fail, or fall. Your readers grow stronger as well. Thank you, Anne Roiphe. CommentsDisplay comments as (Linear | Threaded)
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