dying to meet you . . . and other sayings

When I was much younger I used to listen to a recording my parents had of Dylan Thomas reading his poetry. My favorite was "Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

It will be five years this January 22nd since my father's death.

Now my mother is fading, her memory is shot. She is frail and weak. I will visit her today, having been away for two weeks. I dread seeing her. She's been transformed from this stolid, intense and powerful being to a terrified, anxious wreck. I miss the mother I lost, the one I fought hard to forge a relationship with, the one I spoke with every day by phone, the one who actually supported my writing career. The one who loved me for who I am, not who she hoped I would be. That woman is gone.

I think of how Muriel said that Amelia wouldn't have wanted to live too long, that she would have hated the changes time wrought. Some seem to take this as a reference to Amelia's vanity,but I believe it's not that simple. We age and we watch ourselves diminish incrementally, we lose those we love and lose pieces of what made us love ourselves. It's a vicious journey. Muriel outlived her mother, father, sister, husband and son. Who would want to face that much loss?

In my novel I want her losses to matter, to mean something more, I want to give Muriel what I am unable to give my mother, a reason to hope.

heroism

What does it mean to be a hero? And what does it mean to be a heroine? Why do we have two words to define us? Woman versus man... what are heroic acts that men value? Courage under fire. Courage against all odds. And women? We value all sorts of courageous acts. We protect those we love, would do anything to help them. To defend them. To keep them safe. We'd die for them. Where does Amelia fit into this? This is something I'm grappling with. I think of Muriel, her sister and how she lived her life. A model citizen, a teacher, a mother, a wife . . . and I think of Amelia. How she left all those strictures behind. Why is one choice more valued than the other? Because men define who we are. Men create the values for us. Men make us think that being heroic in daily life is less important. Am I a jaded feminist? I suppose so. I'm at home with being at home. But I'm also in awe of the choices Amelia made. How she bucked the common wisdom and dared to do more.

Amelia was a great proponent of women being as good as men at being whatever they wanted to be . . . doctors, pilots, you name it. It's what makes her so engaging even now. We want to understand what it took for her to be so convinced of your own abilities. We want to be that woman, we all want to be Amelia. Yet what of Muriel? She's as admirable in her own way. What if two roads diverged and you were tempted by both at once.

making real life into fiction

It's not for the faint of heart. Or for those who worry they're going to offend. You'll surely offend someone. But if you don't take the leap and try to re-imagine the person, you're doing your work a disservice. And you'll find no audience. Of course, thinking that you can create a full blown character who is based on a real person is one thing. Doing it is quite another.

Amelia was fair game, but Muriel. I knew she'd put herself in the public eye and written two books. But she was really a much more private person. Yet I felt certain that was the story I wanted to tell. I have an older sister who I once idolized. I thought her courageous and brilliant. I believed her to be perfect. Of course real life intervened. You might say I lost that version of my sister.

I thought of Muriel growing old and losing so many people she loved. How she continued to talk about Amelia. How she kept the faith. I wondered how that would really feel. I told myself that she was human, as was Amelia. Human beings aren't saintly. They're full of all sorts of interesting flaws. It's the imperfections that charm us. And gall us.

Amelia might have seemed saintly to the world, but not to Muriel. Muriel knew her better than anyone.

Thinking that, I began to write . . .