WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:19.350 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.350 --> 00:00:19.930 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:19.930 --> 00:00:21.610 align:middle line:84% I hope you can stay after the reading, 00:00:21.610 --> 00:00:23.490 align:middle line:84% and have some punch and cookies with us 00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:26.580 align:middle line:84% and get acquainted with Nancy Mairs. 00:00:26.580 --> 00:00:30.600 align:middle line:84% Our next reading is in this auditorium on October 4th. 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:34.770 align:middle line:84% And the readers are Jon Anderson and C.E. Poverman, 00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:39.380 align:middle line:84% both of the University Creative Writing faculty. 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:43.580 align:middle line:84% There is a reading for Among Other Things this Saturday. 00:00:43.580 --> 00:00:45.920 align:middle line:84% And I'm sorry I don't have all the details on that. 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:48.890 align:middle line:84% But you can call the Poetry Center if you want more. 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:54.560 align:middle line:84% The Borderlands Theater is presenting Visions and Voices 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:57.260 align:middle line:84% on the Border through this Sunday 00:00:57.260 --> 00:01:03.350 align:middle line:84% at the Historic Teatro Carmen at 380 South Meyer. 00:01:03.350 --> 00:01:06.110 align:middle line:84% This choreographed theater piece features poetry and music 00:01:06.110 --> 00:01:10.440 align:middle line:84% from Native American, African-American, and Latino 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:10.940 align:middle line:90% cultures. 00:01:10.940 --> 00:01:17.130 align:middle line:90% 00:01:17.130 --> 00:01:19.740 align:middle line:84% I hope that you'll all want to come visit the Poetry Center. 00:01:19.740 --> 00:01:23.400 align:middle line:84% We're in our new quarters now at 1216 North Cherry. 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:26.220 align:middle line:84% And although we haven't got everything unpacked, 00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:28.480 align:middle line:90% we are open for business. 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:30.930 align:middle line:84% And we have this fear that no one's going to come over 00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:33.720 align:middle line:90% because we're so far away. 00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:36.840 align:middle line:84% We're a block and a half north of Speedway now, 00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:38.340 align:middle line:84% but it's a very comfortable place, 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:41.760 align:middle line:84% and I hope you will come visit us. 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.302 align:middle line:84% Nancy Mairs is a graduate of the University of Arizona. 00:01:45.302 --> 00:01:47.010 align:middle line:84% And it's always such a wonderful pleasure 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:50.940 align:middle line:90% to introduce one of our own. 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:56.060 align:middle line:84% She's a poet, essayist, and her most recent book 00:01:56.060 --> 00:01:59.265 align:middle line:90% is a book of memoirs. 00:01:59.265 --> 00:02:01.640 align:middle line:84% I have to read the titles because I've taken so much flak 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:04.380 align:middle line:90% for making mistakes. 00:02:04.380 --> 00:02:08.430 align:middle line:84% The new book is Remembering the Bone House: 00:02:08.430 --> 00:02:12.180 align:middle line:84% An Erotics of Place and Space, which was recently 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:14.460 align:middle line:90% published by Harper & Row. 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:17.280 align:middle line:84% University of Arizona Press brought out her collection 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:19.710 align:middle line:90% of essays called Plaintext. 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:24.160 align:middle line:84% And she has two books of poetry, In All the Rooms of the Yellow 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:29.170 align:middle line:90% House and Instead it is Winter. 00:02:29.170 --> 00:02:34.270 align:middle line:84% Her honors include the 1984 Western States Book Award 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:40.070 align:middle line:84% for In All the Rooms of the Yellow House, 00:02:40.070 --> 00:02:42.860 align:middle line:84% fellowships at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:46.250 align:middle line:84% prizes from the Academy of American Poets, and her work 00:02:46.250 --> 00:02:48.290 align:middle line:90% appears in many small magazines. 00:02:48.290 --> 00:02:51.090 align:middle line:84% It's a great pleasure to introduce tonight: Nancy Mairs. 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:59.330 align:middle line:90% 00:02:59.330 --> 00:03:01.640 align:middle line:84% OK, first of all, can you hear me? 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:04.160 align:middle line:84% Is this arrangement going to work? 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:05.030 align:middle line:90% Is it picking up? 00:03:05.030 --> 00:03:07.070 align:middle line:84% Is it coming all the way through? 00:03:07.070 --> 00:03:08.270 align:middle line:90% OK. . 00:03:08.270 --> 00:03:09.110 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:13.040 align:middle line:84% I was just saying to Lois, the last time I read here, 00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:15.240 align:middle line:84% I had temporary crowns in the front 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:16.940 align:middle line:84% and they had just popped out, and I 00:03:16.940 --> 00:03:21.350 align:middle line:84% read looking like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. 00:03:21.350 --> 00:03:23.870 align:middle line:84% You may still think I look like the witch from Hansel 00:03:23.870 --> 00:03:26.270 align:middle line:84% and Gretel, but at least I have my front teeth. 00:03:26.270 --> 00:03:28.730 align:middle line:84% At least I won't lisp the whole time. 00:03:28.730 --> 00:03:32.210 align:middle line:90% 00:03:32.210 --> 00:03:35.420 align:middle line:84% When I'd finished Remembering the Bone House about a year 00:03:35.420 --> 00:03:40.340 align:middle line:84% ago, I felt finished in a way that was kind of new to me. 00:03:40.340 --> 00:03:47.160 align:middle line:84% And reflecting on that, I began to realize that in a way, 00:03:47.160 --> 00:03:52.070 align:middle line:84% it was the third part of a single ongoing project that 00:03:52.070 --> 00:03:55.100 align:middle line:84% had begun in In All the Rooms of the Yellow House 00:03:55.100 --> 00:03:57.860 align:middle line:90% and continued through. 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:00.350 align:middle line:84% And I thought what I'd do tonight 00:04:00.350 --> 00:04:05.390 align:middle line:84% is try to illustrate what I mean by that by reading a bit out 00:04:05.390 --> 00:04:09.800 align:middle line:84% of each book, selecting one theme 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:13.580 align:middle line:84% that I was grappling with each time. 00:04:13.580 --> 00:04:17.240 align:middle line:84% The poetry being, perhaps, the most distanced and the most 00:04:17.240 --> 00:04:18.649 align:middle line:90% symbolic. 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:23.030 align:middle line:84% And then moving into the essay format in Plaintext, 00:04:23.030 --> 00:04:26.580 align:middle line:84% which sort of foregrounds intellectual processes. 00:04:26.580 --> 00:04:29.540 align:middle line:84% And finally, coming sort of straight up 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:35.360 align:middle line:84% against the real stuff in Remembering the Bone House. 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.840 align:middle line:84% Some of that part's going to be a little explicit, 00:04:38.840 --> 00:04:43.640 align:middle line:84% so I guess I'm just warning you, if you want to get up 00:04:43.640 --> 00:04:45.725 align:middle line:90% and bolt, it's OK. 00:04:45.725 --> 00:04:48.940 align:middle line:90% 00:04:48.940 --> 00:04:51.977 align:middle line:84% Start off with a couple of poems from In All the Rooms 00:04:51.977 --> 00:04:52.810 align:middle line:90% of the Yellow House. 00:04:52.810 --> 00:04:56.450 align:middle line:90% 00:04:56.450 --> 00:04:58.625 align:middle line:84% First one is called Beast of My Heart. 00:04:58.625 --> 00:05:01.200 align:middle line:90% 00:05:01.200 --> 00:05:06.240 align:middle line:84% We live in this white and yellow space just large 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.820 align:middle line:84% enough for a woman of bone and a black cat. 00:05:12.820 --> 00:05:20.140 align:middle line:84% The woman, me, the black cat, ma bête noire, 00:05:20.140 --> 00:05:23.460 align:middle line:90% the beast of my heart. 00:05:23.460 --> 00:05:27.830 align:middle line:84% Who eats the tip of my pen as I write. 00:05:27.830 --> 00:05:32.450 align:middle line:84% Who kills my apron hanging beside the refrigerator 00:05:32.450 --> 00:05:38.220 align:middle line:84% in the night when I am not awake to defend it. 00:05:38.220 --> 00:05:44.020 align:middle line:84% Bête Noire is drowsing on the latest revision of my latest 00:05:44.020 --> 00:05:47.530 align:middle line:84% short story, which will one day be 00:05:47.530 --> 00:05:53.820 align:middle line:84% rejected in a personal letter by the New Yorker. 00:05:53.820 --> 00:06:00.940 align:middle line:84% She is dreaming, I think, of the Russian blue in the next yard 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:08.710 align:middle line:84% or of the doves whose feet scrabble on the roof or of me. 00:06:08.710 --> 00:06:16.000 align:middle line:84% When I kill myself, I do it with a handful of tiny yellow pills. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:21.025 align:middle line:84% Bête Noire sleeps against my feet to keep us warm. 00:06:21.025 --> 00:06:27.860 align:middle line:90% 00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:32.180 align:middle line:84% And the second one I wrote for Ed Abbey's daughter, Susie, 00:06:32.180 --> 00:06:37.550 align:middle line:84% who was a little girl at the time who had lost a cat just 00:06:37.550 --> 00:06:40.760 align:middle line:84% about the time that Bête Noire was killed. 00:06:40.760 --> 00:06:44.000 align:middle line:84% It's called, For a Child Who has Lost Her Cat. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:47.770 align:middle line:90% 00:06:47.770 --> 00:06:51.460 align:middle line:90% They go, you know. 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:55.450 align:middle line:84% No matter the dish of tinned tuna, 00:06:55.450 --> 00:07:01.820 align:middle line:84% the nest you build in your own quilts, the felt mouse, 00:07:01.820 --> 00:07:06.390 align:middle line:84% and the ball with pink and yellow stripes, 00:07:06.390 --> 00:07:15.110 align:middle line:84% they disappear into the paths of cars, into talons and beaks, 00:07:15.110 --> 00:07:20.390 align:middle line:84% into the arms of strangers, and the ravages of private disease. 00:07:20.390 --> 00:07:22.960 align:middle line:90% 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:28.940 align:middle line:84% And from their leavings, we learn of living. 00:07:28.940 --> 00:07:34.060 align:middle line:84% How everything that pads into the night, 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:42.685 align:middle line:84% soft-footed, sleek, pads out again, leaving traces. 00:07:42.685 --> 00:07:52.170 align:middle line:90% 00:07:52.170 --> 00:07:55.536 align:middle line:90% The essay from Plaintext is-- 00:07:55.536 --> 00:07:57.330 align:middle line:90% [? let's go down a bit. 00:07:57.330 --> 00:07:59.070 align:middle line:84% ?] It's sort of hard to remember now, 00:07:59.070 --> 00:08:02.880 align:middle line:84% but I think it's the first essay I wrote. 00:08:02.880 --> 00:08:08.370 align:middle line:84% I mean, you know, it wasn't an assignment for freshman comp. 00:08:08.370 --> 00:08:10.440 align:middle line:84% First, what's called in the pedagogical trade, 00:08:10.440 --> 00:08:13.920 align:middle line:90% self-sponsored essay. 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:17.580 align:middle line:84% And I wrote it, in fact, in the first class 00:08:17.580 --> 00:08:20.160 align:middle line:84% that Ed Abbey taught in nonfiction here 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:24.220 align:middle line:90% in spring of 1981. 00:08:24.220 --> 00:08:26.910 align:middle line:84% It's called On Touching By Accident. 00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:29.960 align:middle line:90% 00:08:29.960 --> 00:08:33.169 align:middle line:84% Those of us who would be suicides 00:08:33.169 --> 00:08:36.350 align:middle line:84% come at odd bits of knowledge about the failings 00:08:36.350 --> 00:08:38.740 align:middle line:90% of the human heart. 00:08:38.740 --> 00:08:42.280 align:middle line:84% Not necessarily literal heart failure, of course. 00:08:42.280 --> 00:08:45.100 align:middle line:84% A good many of us stopped short of that point, 00:08:45.100 --> 00:08:47.500 align:middle line:90% for one reason or another. 00:08:47.500 --> 00:08:49.870 align:middle line:84% Virginia Woolf, for instance, who 00:08:49.870 --> 00:08:53.710 align:middle line:84% swallowed a lethal dose of Veronal in 1913, 00:08:53.710 --> 00:08:58.330 align:middle line:84% did not take her final walk into the river ooze with her pockets 00:08:58.330 --> 00:09:02.670 align:middle line:90% full of stones until 1941. 00:09:02.670 --> 00:09:04.140 align:middle line:90% We may survive. 00:09:04.140 --> 00:09:06.530 align:middle line:90% We often do. 00:09:06.530 --> 00:09:08.360 align:middle line:84% The failings I'm talking about have 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:13.220 align:middle line:84% to do not with death, which is another matter altogether. 00:09:13.220 --> 00:09:18.620 align:middle line:84% The one experience Woolf noted, I shall never describe. 00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:22.880 align:middle line:90% But with life, with lives. 00:09:22.880 --> 00:09:26.780 align:middle line:84% The last time I tried to kill myself, a number of things 00:09:26.780 --> 00:09:28.310 align:middle line:90% happened to me. 00:09:28.310 --> 00:09:32.280 align:middle line:84% Most of them predictable and some of them not very pleasant. 00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:37.580 align:middle line:84% But one of them was odd enough that still, months later, I 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:40.550 align:middle line:84% returned to the thought of it, amused 00:09:40.550 --> 00:09:42.950 align:middle line:84% and puzzled and more than a little 00:09:42.950 --> 00:09:46.630 align:middle line:90% anxious about its significance. 00:09:46.630 --> 00:09:49.040 align:middle line:90% I am a depressive. 00:09:49.040 --> 00:09:52.100 align:middle line:84% Researchers know surprisingly little about my condition, 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:55.580 align:middle line:84% which is called unipolar depression, to distinguish it 00:09:55.580 --> 00:09:59.100 align:middle line:84% from bipolar or manic depression. 00:09:59.100 --> 00:10:02.810 align:middle line:84% It may be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. 00:10:02.810 --> 00:10:05.330 align:middle line:84% It occurs cyclically and each person 00:10:05.330 --> 00:10:08.870 align:middle line:84% has his own cycle, or more likely, 00:10:08.870 --> 00:10:11.600 align:middle line:84% her own cycle, since far more women 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.390 align:middle line:90% suffer from depression than men. 00:10:14.390 --> 00:10:17.090 align:middle line:84% No one knows why, though some very good reasons 00:10:17.090 --> 00:10:19.860 align:middle line:90% have been proposed. 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:22.410 align:middle line:84% Depression is characterized by disturbances 00:10:22.410 --> 00:10:24.480 align:middle line:84% in normal physiological functions 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:29.520 align:middle line:84% like eating and sleeping, and by suicidal thoughts or acts 00:10:29.520 --> 00:10:34.850 align:middle line:84% arising from a sense of personal worthlessness and despair. 00:10:34.850 --> 00:10:38.210 align:middle line:84% As a rule, a depressive does not attempt suicide 00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:40.850 align:middle line:90% until she begins to feel better. 00:10:40.850 --> 00:10:43.610 align:middle line:84% Probably because in the depths of depression, 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:47.490 align:middle line:84% she has felt too powerless even to kill herself. 00:10:47.490 --> 00:10:50.400 align:middle line:84% Several doctors have told me, with a good deal 00:10:50.400 --> 00:10:55.050 align:middle line:84% of satisfaction, that I am a textbook case. 00:10:55.050 --> 00:10:58.200 align:middle line:84% I do not like being a textbook case. 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:00.360 align:middle line:90% I feel dull. 00:11:00.360 --> 00:11:04.170 align:middle line:84% Nonetheless, every so often, I fall off the edge of the world 00:11:04.170 --> 00:11:06.570 align:middle line:84% into a void even blacker than the one that 00:11:06.570 --> 00:11:09.900 align:middle line:84% kept medieval sailors in chartered waters. 00:11:09.900 --> 00:11:12.600 align:middle line:84% And just as soon as I begin to emerge, 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:16.260 align:middle line:90% I grab for the bottle of pills. 00:11:16.260 --> 00:11:18.990 align:middle line:90% Just so the last time. 00:11:18.990 --> 00:11:20.940 align:middle line:84% Gradually, my consciousness filled 00:11:20.940 --> 00:11:24.990 align:middle line:84% with the image of a thin, sharp blade drawing again and again 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:28.090 align:middle line:84% across the blue veins in my wrist. 00:11:28.090 --> 00:11:31.350 align:middle line:84% This image is symbolic only except for one 00:11:31.350 --> 00:11:32.340 align:middle line:90% youthful attempt. 00:11:32.340 --> 00:11:34.290 align:middle line:84% I have never tried to slash my wrist, 00:11:34.290 --> 00:11:36.870 align:middle line:84% and would not now choose to do so. 00:11:36.870 --> 00:11:39.720 align:middle line:84% And I'm never entirely free from it. 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.540 align:middle line:84% But when it becomes so repetitive that it screens out 00:11:42.540 --> 00:11:45.420 align:middle line:84% the faces and voices of people around me, 00:11:45.420 --> 00:11:48.420 align:middle line:84% even my own face in the mirror, then I 00:11:48.420 --> 00:11:51.170 align:middle line:90% know I am in mortal danger. 00:11:51.170 --> 00:11:54.620 align:middle line:84% Wonderful how such cliches take on their original purity 00:11:54.620 --> 00:11:58.180 align:middle line:90% and force in literal context. 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:01.360 align:middle line:84% I kept checking myself for signs of survival. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.420 align:middle line:84% I polished my fingernails and had a permanent. 00:12:04.420 --> 00:12:07.630 align:middle line:84% I bought a director's chair in which to sit in the sun, 00:12:07.630 --> 00:12:11.830 align:middle line:84% and a soft plum colored velveteen blazer. 00:12:11.830 --> 00:12:15.148 align:middle line:84% I sent a short story to the New Yorker. 00:12:15.148 --> 00:12:16.940 align:middle line:84% And you all know what happened to that one. 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:19.640 align:middle line:90% 00:12:19.640 --> 00:12:21.980 align:middle line:84% People who do such things, I reasoned, 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:24.350 align:middle line:90% do not commit suicide. 00:12:24.350 --> 00:12:28.310 align:middle line:84% Finally, however, exhausted by the moment to moment decisions 00:12:28.310 --> 00:12:31.130 align:middle line:84% to stay alive, I decided on a Tuesday 00:12:31.130 --> 00:12:34.220 align:middle line:84% that I would kill myself on Friday night. 00:12:34.220 --> 00:12:36.620 align:middle line:84% From then on, I was frantically busy. 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:39.590 align:middle line:84% I had to sort through the tottering piles on my desks 00:12:39.590 --> 00:12:41.420 align:middle line:90% at home and in my office. 00:12:41.420 --> 00:12:43.130 align:middle line:84% I had to catch up on the teaching 00:12:43.130 --> 00:12:45.860 align:middle line:84% duties I had neglected, and plan activities 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:49.040 align:middle line:84% for the rest of the semester so that whoever took over 00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:51.710 align:middle line:84% could do so with the least possible disruption 00:12:51.710 --> 00:12:54.050 align:middle line:90% to my students' learning. 00:12:54.050 --> 00:12:58.370 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] We take this stuff seriously, guys. 00:12:58.370 --> 00:13:00.500 align:middle line:84% I had to write a long letter to George 00:13:00.500 --> 00:13:03.380 align:middle line:84% listing the names and numbers of people to notify, 00:13:03.380 --> 00:13:06.350 align:middle line:84% reminding him that my body was to be donated for research 00:13:06.350 --> 00:13:09.100 align:middle line:90% into multiple sclerosis. 00:13:09.100 --> 00:13:12.980 align:middle line:84% Detailing the distribution of my personal effects. 00:13:12.980 --> 00:13:14.690 align:middle line:84% During that time, I also did a couple 00:13:14.690 --> 00:13:17.420 align:middle line:84% of interviews for a television program about the disabled 00:13:17.420 --> 00:13:20.960 align:middle line:84% that I was hosting, I had a drink with a friend, 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:23.210 align:middle line:84% I invited my daughter to spend a night with me 00:13:23.210 --> 00:13:26.300 align:middle line:84% in the apartment to which I'd moved a few weeks before, 00:13:26.300 --> 00:13:28.250 align:middle line:84% and bought her a pink striped shirt 00:13:28.250 --> 00:13:33.110 align:middle line:84% and a pair of purple jeans at the time I bought my blazer. 00:13:33.110 --> 00:13:35.420 align:middle line:90% By Friday night I was tired. 00:13:35.420 --> 00:13:37.940 align:middle line:84% I thought about staying home from the Halloween party 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:39.350 align:middle line:90% I'd said I'd go to. 00:13:39.350 --> 00:13:42.440 align:middle line:84% But finally, I put on my new blazer and went. 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:45.380 align:middle line:84% And all evening, harlequins and witches and men 00:13:45.380 --> 00:13:47.660 align:middle line:84% with gigantic bosoms and mini skirts 00:13:47.660 --> 00:13:51.050 align:middle line:90% asked me, where's your costume? 00:13:51.050 --> 00:13:56.900 align:middle line:84% And I said carefully each time, you're looking at it. 00:13:56.900 --> 00:13:59.000 align:middle line:90% I had a pretty good time. 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:00.980 align:middle line:84% To be sure, the man with whom I was 00:14:00.980 --> 00:14:03.890 align:middle line:84% in love, who had recently thrown me over-- 00:14:03.890 --> 00:14:06.440 align:middle line:84% another pure and forceful cliche-- 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:09.380 align:middle line:90% was there, annihilating me. 00:14:09.380 --> 00:14:12.410 align:middle line:84% But then, a well-known novelist flirted with me, 00:14:12.410 --> 00:14:15.230 align:middle line:84% so I must have had some substance. 00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:19.480 align:middle line:84% I was kissed by a pirate, and possibly also by a devil. 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:23.190 align:middle line:84% I didn't drink much, I left early. 00:14:23.190 --> 00:14:26.220 align:middle line:84% When I got home, the backyard of my little apartment building 00:14:26.220 --> 00:14:28.320 align:middle line:90% where I parked my car was dark. 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.780 align:middle line:84% But there was a moon and I'd left my porch light 00:14:30.780 --> 00:14:33.210 align:middle line:90% on so I could find my door. 00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:35.460 align:middle line:84% As I stuck the key into the lock, 00:14:35.460 --> 00:14:37.920 align:middle line:84% a figure danced out of the darkness. 00:14:37.920 --> 00:14:42.690 align:middle line:84% A clown, I think, in a pink ruffled suit, and pleaded, 00:14:42.690 --> 00:14:45.240 align:middle line:90% oh, can I use your bathroom? 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.430 align:middle line:90% I'm at this party over there. 00:14:47.430 --> 00:14:48.570 align:middle line:90% Vague gesture. 00:14:48.570 --> 00:14:50.760 align:middle line:84% And the line to the bathroom is miles long 00:14:50.760 --> 00:14:52.350 align:middle line:84% and I've been drinking all this beer 00:14:52.350 --> 00:14:54.810 align:middle line:90% and I'm about to burst and. 00:14:54.810 --> 00:14:57.420 align:middle line:84% Sure, I said, swinging the door in. 00:14:57.420 --> 00:14:59.220 align:middle line:90% It's in there. 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:03.510 align:middle line:84% While she peed torrentially, I turned on the radio, 00:15:03.510 --> 00:15:05.760 align:middle line:84% opened a beer, and put down fresh food 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:08.880 align:middle line:84% for Bête Noire, who was twisting around my ankles 00:15:08.880 --> 00:15:10.770 align:middle line:90% like a dervish. 00:15:10.770 --> 00:15:14.580 align:middle line:84% The clown flushed and came out, yanking at her ruffles. 00:15:14.580 --> 00:15:17.850 align:middle line:84% This is so hard to get in and out of, she moaned. 00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:19.500 align:middle line:90% Oh, thank you. 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:21.240 align:middle line:90% You saved my life. 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:24.350 align:middle line:84% I just couldn't have waited any longer. 00:15:24.350 --> 00:15:26.500 align:middle line:90% She was pink and plump. 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:29.560 align:middle line:84% I didn't think she was old enough for the beer. 00:15:29.560 --> 00:15:32.560 align:middle line:84% Oh, there you are, she called to a shadow 00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:34.150 align:middle line:90% that loomed on the doorstep. 00:15:34.150 --> 00:15:38.410 align:middle line:84% And off she bounded, recounting my heroic rescue of her 00:15:38.410 --> 00:15:41.920 align:middle line:90% in her moment of greatest need. 00:15:41.920 --> 00:15:44.230 align:middle line:90% I close the door behind her. 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:45.880 align:middle line:84% I went into the bathroom and started 00:15:45.880 --> 00:15:49.690 align:middle line:84% taking Elavil while I washed my face and undressed. 00:15:49.690 --> 00:15:52.810 align:middle line:84% I went back into the tidy white bedroom, living room, kitchen, 00:15:52.810 --> 00:15:56.080 align:middle line:90% study, and sat down at my desk. 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.020 align:middle line:84% Still taking the Elavil three by three, 00:15:59.020 --> 00:16:00.970 align:middle line:84% I finished my letter to George and tried 00:16:00.970 --> 00:16:05.080 align:middle line:84% to write in my journal, but my vision was too badly blurred. 00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:08.740 align:middle line:84% I dropped the bottle of Elavil and couldn't 00:16:08.740 --> 00:16:11.740 align:middle line:90% see to pick it up again. 00:16:11.740 --> 00:16:15.020 align:middle line:84% That clumsiness probably saved my life. 00:16:15.020 --> 00:16:17.680 align:middle line:90% That and Bête Noir. 00:16:17.680 --> 00:16:19.180 align:middle line:84% I had at first thought I would turn 00:16:19.180 --> 00:16:22.060 align:middle line:84% on my stove and heater, which had no pilot lights, 00:16:22.060 --> 00:16:24.730 align:middle line:84% and thus hastened the work of the drug. 00:16:24.730 --> 00:16:27.340 align:middle line:84% But Bête was so tiny that I knew the gas would 00:16:27.340 --> 00:16:29.440 align:middle line:90% kill her long before me. 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:31.930 align:middle line:84% And I couldn't bear the thought of her black body 00:16:31.930 --> 00:16:34.560 align:middle line:90% still and lifeless. 00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:37.440 align:middle line:84% By this time, I had no sense of myself 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:40.320 align:middle line:84% or anyone else as a living creature. 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:43.080 align:middle line:84% And when, later, a psychiatrist asked 00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:46.200 align:middle line:84% if I hadn't tried to call for help after taking all 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:50.160 align:middle line:84% those pills, I had to say that I didn't know there was anyone 00:16:50.160 --> 00:16:51.950 align:middle line:90% to call. 00:16:51.950 --> 00:16:55.520 align:middle line:90% Yet I couldn't kill the kitten. 00:16:55.520 --> 00:16:58.820 align:middle line:84% George found me 18 hours later and took me to the emergency 00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:01.700 align:middle line:84% room where, after a few hours on a heart 00:17:01.700 --> 00:17:04.700 align:middle line:84% monitor and the obligatory psychiatric interview, 00:17:04.700 --> 00:17:08.730 align:middle line:84% I was pronounced a survivor and sent home. 00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:11.569 align:middle line:84% I had, at some point, roused having to go to the bathroom 00:17:11.569 --> 00:17:14.450 align:middle line:84% and unable to get even to my hands and knees 00:17:14.450 --> 00:17:18.020 align:middle line:84% and drag myself around my apartment, battering my body 00:17:18.020 --> 00:17:20.990 align:middle line:84% and smearing the floor with blood and urine. 00:17:20.990 --> 00:17:23.460 align:middle line:90% But I heal quickly. 00:17:23.460 --> 00:17:27.790 align:middle line:84% Before long, the bruises faded and the scabs fell off. 00:17:27.790 --> 00:17:32.090 align:middle line:84% I was still shaky, but no longer suicidal. 00:17:32.090 --> 00:17:34.860 align:middle line:84% I had let a lot of my responsibilities slide, 00:17:34.860 --> 00:17:38.450 align:middle line:84% so I threw myself into activity and forgot the whole mess 00:17:38.450 --> 00:17:42.280 align:middle line:84% as much and as quickly as possible. 00:17:42.280 --> 00:17:45.790 align:middle line:84% Then one day, six weeks or so later, 00:17:45.790 --> 00:17:47.560 align:middle line:84% when I was having lunch with a friend 00:17:47.560 --> 00:17:52.150 align:middle line:84% and we were swapping stories of failed love and suicide, 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:56.410 align:middle line:84% I saw suddenly the round, pink, ruffled form 00:17:56.410 --> 00:17:58.900 align:middle line:84% of the little clown dancing through my door 00:17:58.900 --> 00:18:01.540 align:middle line:90% and into my bathroom. 00:18:01.540 --> 00:18:04.660 align:middle line:84% I had wholly forgotten her and the young man 00:18:04.660 --> 00:18:08.480 align:middle line:84% waiting for her in the shadows under my cedar trees. 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:13.490 align:middle line:84% I was startled by the memory, so quick, so complete. 00:18:13.490 --> 00:18:18.440 align:middle line:84% Startled and amused, and I began to describe it to my friend. 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:21.830 align:middle line:84% Just then, though, the man who had thrown me over, 00:18:21.830 --> 00:18:26.030 align:middle line:84% with whom I was still in love, asked if he might join us. 00:18:26.030 --> 00:18:29.630 align:middle line:84% And naturally, we had to speak of other things. 00:18:29.630 --> 00:18:34.160 align:middle line:84% I never finished my story about the clown. 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.180 align:middle line:84% I have thought of her often since then, however. 00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:42.290 align:middle line:84% She entered my life so lightly, this child, 00:18:42.290 --> 00:18:45.380 align:middle line:84% needing only a place to empty her bladder so that she 00:18:45.380 --> 00:18:47.630 align:middle line:90% wouldn't disgrace herself. 00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:51.180 align:middle line:84% At just the moment when I was planning to leave. 00:18:51.180 --> 00:18:54.450 align:middle line:90% So she couldn't have known that. 00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:59.660 align:middle line:84% And I wonder whether I have done just the same thing myself. 00:18:59.660 --> 00:19:05.480 align:middle line:84% Wandering through some other's desolation in my costume, 00:19:05.480 --> 00:19:10.640 align:middle line:84% tight jeans, soft shirt, dusky velveteen blazer, 00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:16.740 align:middle line:84% cane, needing some quick favor on my way. 00:19:16.740 --> 00:19:19.840 align:middle line:90% How many times? 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:20.425 align:middle line:90% And when? 00:19:20.425 --> 00:19:28.960 align:middle line:90% 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:31.870 align:middle line:84% At the time I wrote that essay, the experience was-- 00:19:31.870 --> 00:19:37.920 align:middle line:90% 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:39.715 align:middle line:84% I'm not good with mechanical devices. 00:19:39.715 --> 00:19:42.490 align:middle line:90% 00:19:42.490 --> 00:19:47.560 align:middle line:84% The time that I wrote that essay, as you can tell, 00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:49.810 align:middle line:84% the experience was still fairly fresh 00:19:49.810 --> 00:19:54.340 align:middle line:84% in my memory, which perhaps added 00:19:54.340 --> 00:19:56.020 align:middle line:90% to the vividness of the writing. 00:19:56.020 --> 00:20:02.020 align:middle line:84% But hadn't permitted me the time to reflect on the significance 00:20:02.020 --> 00:20:03.860 align:middle line:90% of the whole experience. 00:20:03.860 --> 00:20:08.800 align:middle line:84% And so when I wrote Remembering the Bone House some years 00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:13.300 align:middle line:84% by that time later, I was coming to it 00:20:13.300 --> 00:20:17.650 align:middle line:84% from a much different vantage point. 00:20:17.650 --> 00:20:21.220 align:middle line:84% Not just a survivor, but kind of long term 00:20:21.220 --> 00:20:25.150 align:middle line:84% survivor at that point, with distance from it 00:20:25.150 --> 00:20:31.150 align:middle line:84% enough to try to understand what was underneath the desolation 00:20:31.150 --> 00:20:33.340 align:middle line:90% of a woman thrown over. 00:20:33.340 --> 00:20:35.090 align:middle line:84% You know, what was really at work. 00:20:35.090 --> 00:20:38.230 align:middle line:84% Why does an experience like that desolate? 00:20:38.230 --> 00:20:41.470 align:middle line:84% And I think it's not an idiosyncratic experience. 00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:43.510 align:middle line:84% I think there are a lot of women, perhaps 00:20:43.510 --> 00:20:45.910 align:middle line:84% here in this room, who could say, yeah, 00:20:45.910 --> 00:20:49.810 align:middle line:84% I've been done in by just that kind of thing, 00:20:49.810 --> 00:20:52.600 align:middle line:84% that kind of abandonment, or what have you. 00:20:52.600 --> 00:20:55.270 align:middle line:84% But there would be other possible ways of responding 00:20:55.270 --> 00:20:56.203 align:middle line:90% to such an experience. 00:20:56.203 --> 00:20:58.120 align:middle line:84% I might, for instance, have been really pissed 00:20:58.120 --> 00:21:02.950 align:middle line:84% and said, well, the more fool he for dumping me, 00:21:02.950 --> 00:21:06.370 align:middle line:84% what a terrible loss for him, or something like that. 00:21:06.370 --> 00:21:07.150 align:middle line:90% But I didn't. 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:09.460 align:middle line:84% I never never thought of it that way at all. 00:21:09.460 --> 00:21:11.410 align:middle line:90% Why not? 00:21:11.410 --> 00:21:14.680 align:middle line:84% As I say, from the distance I then had, 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:17.480 align:middle line:84% I was able to ask questions like that. 00:21:17.480 --> 00:21:23.530 align:middle line:84% And so I think that the retelling in this book 00:21:23.530 --> 00:21:29.020 align:middle line:84% is both closer in a kind of physiological sense 00:21:29.020 --> 00:21:34.840 align:middle line:84% because a lot of what I do in Remembering the Bone House, 00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:37.570 align:middle line:84% the significance of the title is that bone house 00:21:37.570 --> 00:21:41.410 align:middle line:84% is the literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon word for body. 00:21:41.410 --> 00:21:44.980 align:middle line:90% Your ban-hus is your body. 00:21:44.980 --> 00:21:48.040 align:middle line:84% And repeatedly, in the book, I'm trying 00:21:48.040 --> 00:21:52.810 align:middle line:84% to come at literal physical experience which 00:21:52.810 --> 00:21:56.840 align:middle line:84% has been overlaid by all kinds of cultural layers. 00:21:56.840 --> 00:21:58.780 align:middle line:90% So I sort of stripped those off. 00:21:58.780 --> 00:22:00.250 align:middle line:90% So that was at work. 00:22:00.250 --> 00:22:02.380 align:middle line:84% But then also that sense of trying 00:22:02.380 --> 00:22:07.780 align:middle line:84% to understand the resonances of an experience, not 00:22:07.780 --> 00:22:12.700 align:middle line:84% just the raw material, but the significance. 00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:16.050 align:middle line:84% The book is written as a series of essays 00:22:16.050 --> 00:22:18.840 align:middle line:84% and each one is divided into subsections. 00:22:18.840 --> 00:22:21.210 align:middle line:84% And each of those sections is further 00:22:21.210 --> 00:22:25.080 align:middle line:84% divided so that it's kind of like snapshots, kind 00:22:25.080 --> 00:22:27.330 align:middle line:90% of like verbal snapshots. 00:22:27.330 --> 00:22:29.580 align:middle line:84% I can't really-- it works on the printed page. 00:22:29.580 --> 00:22:33.360 align:middle line:84% I can't really do it orally, except to pause a little longer 00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:35.790 align:middle line:84% where the white space is on the page 00:22:35.790 --> 00:22:37.660 align:middle line:90% between the different sections. 00:22:37.660 --> 00:22:42.450 align:middle line:84% But this is section four of the essay called The Desert. 00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:45.950 align:middle line:90% 00:22:45.950 --> 00:22:50.330 align:middle line:84% I fall in love with a man because he eats a cup of yogurt 00:22:50.330 --> 00:22:53.320 align:middle line:90% with a fork. 00:22:53.320 --> 00:22:55.810 align:middle line:84% From the frailty of this pretext, 00:22:55.810 --> 00:23:03.120 align:middle line:84% you can guess, though I don't, how ripe I am for capitulation. 00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:06.600 align:middle line:84% Richard has come into my office to eat lunch with me. 00:23:06.600 --> 00:23:09.930 align:middle line:84% But he's forgotten a spoon and all I've got in my desk 00:23:09.930 --> 00:23:13.620 align:middle line:84% is a fork with twisted tines, kind of like the one 00:23:13.620 --> 00:23:17.010 align:middle line:84% my old school principal, Bessie M. Buker, 00:23:17.010 --> 00:23:19.800 align:middle line:84% used to wrap the cafeteria door frame with 00:23:19.800 --> 00:23:21.870 align:middle line:90% to get our attention. 00:23:21.870 --> 00:23:27.000 align:middle line:84% The sight of Richard making do with that disarms me. 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:29.340 align:middle line:90% Well, there's more. 00:23:29.340 --> 00:23:32.100 align:middle line:84% Smiles in the corridor and little compliments 00:23:32.100 --> 00:23:34.590 align:middle line:90% and witty notes in my mailbox. 00:23:34.590 --> 00:23:37.200 align:middle line:84% All the small singling out gestures 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:40.680 align:middle line:84% that signal the presence of an other on one's 00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:43.050 align:middle line:90% cluttered horizon. 00:23:43.050 --> 00:23:47.310 align:middle line:84% Slowly he comes into focus, a lovely long body 00:23:47.310 --> 00:23:50.310 align:middle line:84% with good Legs, tight from cycling, 00:23:50.310 --> 00:23:53.700 align:middle line:84% and a deep chest below narrow shoulders, 00:23:53.700 --> 00:23:57.270 align:middle line:84% a shock of black hair, a dense beard framing 00:23:57.270 --> 00:24:01.860 align:middle line:90% sensuous lips, pale hazel eyes. 00:24:01.860 --> 00:24:05.580 align:middle line:84% I think off and on about having an affair with him. 00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:08.870 align:middle line:90% But the idea makes me tired. 00:24:08.870 --> 00:24:12.110 align:middle line:84% Having an affair, I remember, requires 00:24:12.110 --> 00:24:16.430 align:middle line:84% a lot of effort, a lot of attention to another person. 00:24:16.430 --> 00:24:19.730 align:middle line:84% And although sometimes I feel like bothering, 00:24:19.730 --> 00:24:22.960 align:middle line:90% as often as not, I don't. 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:26.070 align:middle line:84% It's been six years since the last one. 00:24:26.070 --> 00:24:30.940 align:middle line:84% I'm afraid I've lost the energy for turning anyone on. 00:24:30.940 --> 00:24:33.340 align:middle line:90% But he gets turned on. 00:24:33.340 --> 00:24:35.260 align:middle line:84% A group of graduate students gathers 00:24:35.260 --> 00:24:37.900 align:middle line:84% on the last night of July under a chinaberry tree 00:24:37.900 --> 00:24:42.640 align:middle line:84% strung with tiny clear lights on the terrace of the Shanty. 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:44.890 align:middle line:90% I sit beside Richard. 00:24:44.890 --> 00:24:47.530 align:middle line:84% We look at one another for a long moment, 00:24:47.530 --> 00:24:50.250 align:middle line:90% and he smiles a little. 00:24:50.250 --> 00:24:50.750 align:middle line:90% "What?" 00:24:50.750 --> 00:24:52.620 align:middle line:90% I ask. 00:24:52.620 --> 00:24:55.650 align:middle line:84% He starts to say something and then breaks off. 00:24:55.650 --> 00:25:00.420 align:middle line:84% You know, I've been wondering, I say softly, 00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:06.190 align:middle line:84% laughing, what would happen if I leaned over and kissed you? 00:25:06.190 --> 00:25:08.410 align:middle line:90% This is a dumb idea. 00:25:08.410 --> 00:25:10.780 align:middle line:84% I don't know most of the people here very well, 00:25:10.780 --> 00:25:12.040 align:middle line:90% but Richard does. 00:25:12.040 --> 00:25:14.920 align:middle line:90% And they all know I'm married. 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:19.360 align:middle line:84% I think we'd better wait to do that on our own, he replies, 00:25:19.360 --> 00:25:21.380 align:middle line:90% soon. 00:25:21.380 --> 00:25:22.370 align:middle line:90% Yes, I say. 00:25:22.370 --> 00:25:24.350 align:middle line:90% Yes, soon. 00:25:24.350 --> 00:25:26.800 align:middle line:90% Then go home. 00:25:26.800 --> 00:25:29.710 align:middle line:84% Three months later to the night, I nearly die. 00:25:29.710 --> 00:25:33.230 align:middle line:90% 00:25:33.230 --> 00:25:37.920 align:middle line:84% Because I don't die, but go on living for many more years, 00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:40.490 align:middle line:90% I gained ample hindsight. 00:25:40.490 --> 00:25:42.830 align:middle line:84% I recognized that Richard and I entered 00:25:42.830 --> 00:25:46.310 align:middle line:84% one another's lives at the worst possible moments. 00:25:46.310 --> 00:25:49.520 align:middle line:84% He, bolting from a ruined relationship. 00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:53.160 align:middle line:84% I, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. 00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:55.910 align:middle line:84% He couldn't help treating me badly any more 00:25:55.910 --> 00:25:58.970 align:middle line:90% than I could help cracking up. 00:25:58.970 --> 00:26:01.190 align:middle line:84% Reading over my notes from the time, 00:26:01.190 --> 00:26:04.280 align:middle line:84% I will see that an elegiac quality permeated 00:26:04.280 --> 00:26:07.510 align:middle line:90% the brief affair. 00:26:07.510 --> 00:26:11.780 align:middle line:84% I knew the ending before the beginning. 00:26:11.780 --> 00:26:14.960 align:middle line:84% I will feel grateful to have survived. 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:19.790 align:middle line:84% For now, I hold love on the back of my tongue. 00:26:19.790 --> 00:26:22.680 align:middle line:90% Bitter pill of a word. 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:24.750 align:middle line:90% Bitter as poison. 00:26:24.750 --> 00:26:28.980 align:middle line:84% Determined to die rather than spit it out. 00:26:28.980 --> 00:26:30.720 align:middle line:90% That's just how crazy I am. 00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:35.220 align:middle line:90% 00:26:35.220 --> 00:26:38.160 align:middle line:84% Richard is a careful, empathic lover, 00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:40.950 align:middle line:90% and a humorous companion. 00:26:40.950 --> 00:26:43.800 align:middle line:84% After making love, he sits beside me, 00:26:43.800 --> 00:26:47.070 align:middle line:84% reading me bits out of Jacques Barzun, 00:26:47.070 --> 00:26:51.900 align:middle line:84% recalling his college sweetheart who loves him still, 00:26:51.900 --> 00:26:55.320 align:middle line:84% recounting how he organized the Canterbury Recycling 00:26:55.320 --> 00:26:57.660 align:middle line:90% Association. 00:26:57.660 --> 00:26:59.700 align:middle line:90% I've been lucky in lovers. 00:26:59.700 --> 00:27:02.880 align:middle line:84% Most have been bright and entertaining. 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:05.190 align:middle line:84% Richard, I feel especially close to, 00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:09.150 align:middle line:84% delighted by, because he likes to write too. 00:27:09.150 --> 00:27:11.700 align:middle line:84% Still, in the years since my last affair, 00:27:11.700 --> 00:27:14.220 align:middle line:84% I've grown increasingly introverted. 00:27:14.220 --> 00:27:17.400 align:middle line:84% And now his lovemaking lays me open to terror 00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:20.190 align:middle line:90% as I haven't felt before. 00:27:20.190 --> 00:27:22.770 align:middle line:84% When he puts his fingers between my legs, 00:27:22.770 --> 00:27:27.060 align:middle line:84% my insides explode and I think, my God, 00:27:27.060 --> 00:27:30.380 align:middle line:90% how does he know how to do that? 00:27:30.380 --> 00:27:34.270 align:middle line:84% As though he had violated my private self. 00:27:34.270 --> 00:27:37.280 align:middle line:84% "You like to make love, don't you?" he asks. 00:27:37.280 --> 00:27:40.530 align:middle line:84% And I don't want him to know that about me. 00:27:40.530 --> 00:27:43.980 align:middle line:84% I don't want anyone to know so much about me. 00:27:43.980 --> 00:27:48.550 align:middle line:84% I don't want anyone to have such power over me. 00:27:48.550 --> 00:27:51.910 align:middle line:84% "You're different in bed.", he says. 00:27:51.910 --> 00:27:53.970 align:middle line:90% "How so?" 00:27:53.970 --> 00:27:57.540 align:middle line:90% "Earthier, simpler." 00:27:57.540 --> 00:27:58.860 align:middle line:90% "Yes.", I say. 00:27:58.860 --> 00:28:02.060 align:middle line:90% Life seems simpler here. 00:28:02.060 --> 00:28:06.020 align:middle line:84% There's nothing beyond the edge of the bed. 00:28:06.020 --> 00:28:07.175 align:middle line:90% But of course, there is. 00:28:07.175 --> 00:28:10.890 align:middle line:90% 00:28:10.890 --> 00:28:14.130 align:middle line:84% In his journal, Richard says he refers to me 00:28:14.130 --> 00:28:17.220 align:middle line:90% as "A woman I know." 00:28:17.220 --> 00:28:18.930 align:middle line:90% "Please.", I tell him. 00:28:18.930 --> 00:28:23.810 align:middle line:84% "Please, in your journal, let me be Nancy." 00:28:23.810 --> 00:28:25.640 align:middle line:90% But does it matter, I wonder. 00:28:25.640 --> 00:28:29.440 align:middle line:90% 00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:33.940 align:middle line:84% Almost immediately, the poems start coming. 00:28:33.940 --> 00:28:36.370 align:middle line:90% The strongest ones yet. 00:28:36.370 --> 00:28:38.680 align:middle line:90% Some short stories too. 00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:41.410 align:middle line:84% I feel as though I've been boarded up 00:28:41.410 --> 00:28:45.040 align:middle line:84% and my desire for Richard has thrown me wide open, 00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:50.080 align:middle line:84% images rushing in, words rushing out. 00:28:50.080 --> 00:28:52.930 align:middle line:84% The sense of trespass his love making creates 00:28:52.930 --> 00:28:55.780 align:middle line:90% is the price I have to pay. 00:28:55.780 --> 00:29:00.990 align:middle line:84% Someone's got to break in or the poems don't get out. 00:29:00.990 --> 00:29:04.890 align:middle line:84% I take to writing poems even in dreams. 00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:06.510 align:middle line:90% And this is one. 00:29:06.510 --> 00:29:11.580 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I just don't want to be good, too many of me 00:29:11.580 --> 00:29:13.440 align:middle line:90% have been good for too long. 00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:17.570 align:middle line:90% 00:29:17.570 --> 00:29:20.150 align:middle line:84% I may be in love less with Richard 00:29:20.150 --> 00:29:22.550 align:middle line:90% than with Richard's space. 00:29:22.550 --> 00:29:24.260 align:middle line:90% He has an apartment. 00:29:24.260 --> 00:29:27.830 align:middle line:84% Really just one large room with a kitchen and bathroom 00:29:27.830 --> 00:29:30.950 align:middle line:84% at the back of an old house downtown. 00:29:30.950 --> 00:29:33.320 align:middle line:84% The pungent smell of eucalyptus branches 00:29:33.320 --> 00:29:37.620 align:middle line:84% stuck in a jar on the bookcase permeates the dim air. 00:29:37.620 --> 00:29:40.950 align:middle line:84% He says the place holds what he needs to live, 00:29:40.950 --> 00:29:43.440 align:middle line:90% which doesn't seem to be much. 00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:48.540 align:middle line:84% A few clothes, a few dishes, shelves and shelves of books, 00:29:48.540 --> 00:29:50.460 align:middle line:90% a typewriter. 00:29:50.460 --> 00:29:53.070 align:middle line:90% Mostly a typewriter. 00:29:53.070 --> 00:29:55.350 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether he needs that to live, 00:29:55.350 --> 00:29:58.870 align:middle line:90% but I suspect that I do. 00:29:58.870 --> 00:30:03.370 align:middle line:84% My own house feels as filthy and chaotic as a bus terminal. 00:30:03.370 --> 00:30:06.580 align:middle line:84% George's working hours are long and erratic. 00:30:06.580 --> 00:30:10.600 align:middle line:84% The children wander in and out, trailing friends. 00:30:10.600 --> 00:30:15.280 align:middle line:84% If they notice me at all, they see the big meanie. 00:30:15.280 --> 00:30:19.630 align:middle line:84% The one who makes them wash the dishes and sets curfews earlier 00:30:19.630 --> 00:30:22.660 align:middle line:90% than anyone else's. 00:30:22.660 --> 00:30:26.560 align:middle line:84% I recognize that, structurally, at this point in their lives, 00:30:26.560 --> 00:30:30.680 align:middle line:84% as a parent I have to be wrong no matter what I do. 00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:32.770 align:middle line:84% That's not to justify my actions, 00:30:32.770 --> 00:30:35.050 align:middle line:90% maybe they're truly dreadful. 00:30:35.050 --> 00:30:38.140 align:middle line:84% But I'm not sure it matters a whole lot. 00:30:38.140 --> 00:30:41.140 align:middle line:84% Whatever I do, they have to reject it. 00:30:41.140 --> 00:30:46.750 align:middle line:84% And me too, I suppose, in order to get on into their own lives. 00:30:46.750 --> 00:30:49.600 align:middle line:84% In the process, they're creating me, 00:30:49.600 --> 00:30:53.800 align:middle line:84% and I hate who they need me to be. 00:30:53.800 --> 00:30:56.830 align:middle line:84% The house itself is too big for me now. 00:30:56.830 --> 00:30:59.020 align:middle line:84% I'm too weak to care for it properly 00:30:59.020 --> 00:31:02.140 align:middle line:84% and no one else is willing, so I feel constantly 00:31:02.140 --> 00:31:05.350 align:middle line:84% as though it's falling down around my ears. 00:31:05.350 --> 00:31:08.940 align:middle line:90% I can't breathe here. 00:31:08.940 --> 00:31:13.380 align:middle line:84% The quest of women writers, Janette Turner Hospital writes, 00:31:13.380 --> 00:31:17.100 align:middle line:84% "It's a search not just for a room of their own, 00:31:17.100 --> 00:31:22.440 align:middle line:84% but for safe, private space for non-toxic air, for a place 00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:25.230 align:middle line:84% where the self can really breathe. 00:31:25.230 --> 00:31:29.760 align:middle line:84% The search involves contraction into smaller and smaller space. 00:31:29.760 --> 00:31:32.940 align:middle line:84% Frequently, it leads to an ultimate withdrawal 00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:36.120 align:middle line:90% into the body itself." 00:31:36.120 --> 00:31:36.720 align:middle line:90% Close quote. 00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:39.650 align:middle line:90% 00:31:39.650 --> 00:31:42.710 align:middle line:84% The evening after Richard and I first make love, 00:31:42.710 --> 00:31:46.340 align:middle line:84% everyone happens to be out at once. 00:31:46.340 --> 00:31:50.060 align:middle line:84% Smelling of Richard, feeling soft and tired, 00:31:50.060 --> 00:31:56.060 align:middle line:84% I make myself an omelet savoyard and sliced tomatoes with basil. 00:31:56.060 --> 00:31:59.450 align:middle line:84% I eat alone, drinking a glass of white wine 00:31:59.450 --> 00:32:03.890 align:middle line:84% and thinking how badly I want to live like this. 00:32:03.890 --> 00:32:06.230 align:middle line:84% As proof of my ability to live alone 00:32:06.230 --> 00:32:08.720 align:middle line:84% in spite of my physical limitations, 00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:11.120 align:middle line:84% I start to clean up my own dishes 00:32:11.120 --> 00:32:13.580 align:middle line:84% and promptly slice my left middle finger 00:32:13.580 --> 00:32:16.010 align:middle line:90% on the French cutting knife. 00:32:16.010 --> 00:32:18.980 align:middle line:84% Finger on ice, I take coffee and amaretto 00:32:18.980 --> 00:32:24.800 align:middle line:84% to the porch to watch a storm boil up over the Catalinas. 00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:29.720 align:middle line:84% And so, ignoring the omen of the sliced finger, 00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:32.600 align:middle line:90% I run away from home. 00:32:32.600 --> 00:32:34.070 align:middle line:90% Not far. 00:32:34.070 --> 00:32:36.740 align:middle line:90% About nine blocks. 00:32:36.740 --> 00:32:41.910 align:middle line:84% I find one little room with a sink stove and refrigerator 00:32:41.910 --> 00:32:45.150 align:middle line:84% and an enamel table with two chairs at one end. 00:32:45.150 --> 00:32:48.360 align:middle line:84% And at the other, a studio couch, some bookshelves, 00:32:48.360 --> 00:32:50.290 align:middle line:90% and a desk. 00:32:50.290 --> 00:32:54.130 align:middle line:84% The closet and dresser have been built into the bathroom. 00:32:54.130 --> 00:32:56.650 align:middle line:84% I like its snugness, as though it were 00:32:56.650 --> 00:32:59.200 align:middle line:90% a ship's cabin or a camper. 00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:02.530 align:middle line:84% Something miniature, encompassable, 00:33:02.530 --> 00:33:05.050 align:middle line:90% to carry me along. 00:33:05.050 --> 00:33:07.480 align:middle line:90% The landlord is taken with me. 00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:10.300 align:middle line:84% So he gives the walls a fresh coat of paint, 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:14.380 align:middle line:84% white and yellow, hangs yellow curtains in the windows, 00:33:14.380 --> 00:33:18.070 align:middle line:84% even puts a new corduroy slipcover on the couch. 00:33:18.070 --> 00:33:23.540 align:middle line:84% Here, I think, I will make my own life. 00:33:23.540 --> 00:33:25.970 align:middle line:84% What I jot in my journal, however, 00:33:25.970 --> 00:33:31.070 align:middle line:84% rings a different note, I am deathly tired. 00:33:31.070 --> 00:33:33.890 align:middle line:90% Literally, deathly tired. 00:33:33.890 --> 00:33:36.080 align:middle line:84% I wonder if I have not crawled away 00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:39.920 align:middle line:84% to this little space, not as a bid for independence, 00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:41.930 align:middle line:90% but in order to die. 00:33:41.930 --> 00:33:46.030 align:middle line:90% 00:33:46.030 --> 00:33:49.420 align:middle line:84% Anne has given me a tiny black kitten with tufted ears 00:33:49.420 --> 00:33:50.980 align:middle line:90% and a kink in her tail. 00:33:50.980 --> 00:33:55.210 align:middle line:84% I've named her Bête Noire, my beloved beast, 00:33:55.210 --> 00:33:58.330 align:middle line:90% the beast of my heart. 00:33:58.330 --> 00:34:01.510 align:middle line:84% When I move away, George insists that I take her along 00:34:01.510 --> 00:34:03.010 align:middle line:90% for company. 00:34:03.010 --> 00:34:05.020 align:middle line:84% At first I don't want her with me. 00:34:05.020 --> 00:34:08.500 align:middle line:84% I want no responsibility for another living creature. 00:34:08.500 --> 00:34:11.469 align:middle line:84% But I go to the Safeway and buy her Purina cat 00:34:11.469 --> 00:34:15.969 align:middle line:84% chow, tinned tuna, a pair of yellow dishes, a ping pong 00:34:15.969 --> 00:34:19.179 align:middle line:84% ball with a fuzzy cover of pink and yellow stripes, 00:34:19.179 --> 00:34:20.560 align:middle line:90% and we settle down together. 00:34:20.560 --> 00:34:23.900 align:middle line:90% 00:34:23.900 --> 00:34:26.960 align:middle line:84% My affair with Richard suits me badly. 00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:29.719 align:middle line:84% Since the evening at the Shanty, I haven't once 00:34:29.719 --> 00:34:31.550 align:middle line:90% slept through the night. 00:34:31.550 --> 00:34:35.090 align:middle line:84% Drained at the end of every day, I thud into unconsciousness 00:34:35.090 --> 00:34:36.650 align:middle line:90% as soon as I stretch out. 00:34:36.650 --> 00:34:41.030 align:middle line:84% But after an hour or two, I surface, preternaturally alert, 00:34:41.030 --> 00:34:45.409 align:middle line:84% and often don't sleep again till dawn or later. 00:34:45.409 --> 00:34:48.920 align:middle line:84% My exhaustion leaves me groggy and ill. 00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:52.760 align:middle line:84% Flesh starts melting off me like candle wax. 00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:59.270 align:middle line:90% I weigh 101, 98, 95. 00:34:59.270 --> 00:35:01.130 align:middle line:90% I rather like this part. 00:35:01.130 --> 00:35:04.130 align:middle line:84% The way my bones jut up under my skin, 00:35:04.130 --> 00:35:07.130 align:middle line:90% the way my clothes hang off me. 00:35:07.130 --> 00:35:11.450 align:middle line:84% It makes me feel fragile and pellucid. 00:35:11.450 --> 00:35:14.180 align:middle line:90% Then Richard ends the affair. 00:35:14.180 --> 00:35:17.150 align:middle line:84% He arrives at my door one Sunday afternoon. 00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:21.080 align:middle line:84% We sit out on a little wall under the cedar trees. 00:35:21.080 --> 00:35:24.380 align:middle line:84% He sleeps only with women he's in love with, he tells me, 00:35:24.380 --> 00:35:26.920 align:middle line:90% and he's not in love with me. 00:35:26.920 --> 00:35:30.220 align:middle line:84% I wish he'd given me that information a couple of months 00:35:30.220 --> 00:35:31.890 align:middle line:90% ago. 00:35:31.890 --> 00:35:34.350 align:middle line:90% Now it's too late. 00:35:34.350 --> 00:35:36.900 align:middle line:90% Too late for what, I'm not sure. 00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:39.940 align:middle line:90% But I know it's too late. 00:35:39.940 --> 00:35:42.550 align:middle line:84% After he leaves, I close my door and windows 00:35:42.550 --> 00:35:45.340 align:middle line:84% and bury my head in my pillows and howl the way 00:35:45.340 --> 00:35:49.040 align:middle line:90% I did both times I gave birth. 00:35:49.040 --> 00:35:54.470 align:middle line:84% Afterward, I grow quiet and begin to plan to die. 00:35:54.470 --> 00:35:56.660 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure that the loss of Richard 00:35:56.660 --> 00:35:59.150 align:middle line:90% causes me all this pain. 00:35:59.150 --> 00:36:02.060 align:middle line:84% The loss of self seems at the heart of it, 00:36:02.060 --> 00:36:05.540 align:middle line:84% a loss I never experienced with other lovers. 00:36:05.540 --> 00:36:11.070 align:middle line:84% But I was younger then, prettier, and not so shy. 00:36:11.070 --> 00:36:13.830 align:middle line:84% I permitted Richard to see me naked, 00:36:13.830 --> 00:36:20.470 align:middle line:84% penetrate me, surely in sexual terms, but also symbolically. 00:36:20.470 --> 00:36:24.610 align:middle line:84% I abandoned myself in making love to him, exposing myself 00:36:24.610 --> 00:36:28.120 align:middle line:90% horribly, and now I'm ashamed. 00:36:28.120 --> 00:36:32.770 align:middle line:84% The shame as much as the loneliness is doing me in. 00:36:32.770 --> 00:36:38.470 align:middle line:84% I want my self back intact, untouched by Richard's 00:36:38.470 --> 00:36:40.930 align:middle line:90% careless fingers. 00:36:40.930 --> 00:36:45.250 align:middle line:84% When I think of my scrawny, crippled body, kicked 00:36:45.250 --> 00:36:48.580 align:middle line:84% now out of his bed, I feel as though I'd 00:36:48.580 --> 00:36:52.045 align:middle line:84% been stripped to the skin and then flayed. 00:36:52.045 --> 00:36:57.770 align:middle line:90% 00:36:57.770 --> 00:37:00.350 align:middle line:84% The fact that I'm having a breakdown 00:37:00.350 --> 00:37:05.430 align:middle line:84% strikes me abruptly and with perfect clarity. 00:37:05.430 --> 00:37:09.090 align:middle line:84% I go on having the breakdown anyway. 00:37:09.090 --> 00:37:14.040 align:middle line:84% Knowledge is no proof against certain kinds of disaster. 00:37:14.040 --> 00:37:16.980 align:middle line:90% Maybe most kinds. 00:37:16.980 --> 00:37:19.220 align:middle line:90% Part of me knows I am ill. 00:37:19.220 --> 00:37:21.900 align:middle line:84% Another part sneers incredulously, 00:37:21.900 --> 00:37:28.380 align:middle line:84% accusing me in mother's long familiar words of dramatics. 00:37:28.380 --> 00:37:31.110 align:middle line:84% The first part gets me to my neurologist, 00:37:31.110 --> 00:37:35.610 align:middle line:84% who prescribes amitriptyline, an antidepressant. 00:37:35.610 --> 00:37:37.290 align:middle line:84% And to the psychotherapist I haven't 00:37:37.290 --> 00:37:40.920 align:middle line:84% seen in years, who tells me that my psychic patterns no 00:37:40.920 --> 00:37:44.010 align:middle line:84% longer serve me and I must restructure my life 00:37:44.010 --> 00:37:49.860 align:middle line:84% to allow me not merely to pose but to function as a writer. 00:37:49.860 --> 00:37:53.010 align:middle line:84% The second part circles wearily, sensing 00:37:53.010 --> 00:37:57.660 align:middle line:84% that Jose, with his pills, and Ken, with his new structures, 00:37:57.660 --> 00:38:00.660 align:middle line:84% may do me out of the urge to kill myself 00:38:00.660 --> 00:38:05.280 align:middle line:84% and then I'll have to struggle on and on. 00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:07.420 align:middle line:84% The day before taking an overdose, 00:38:07.420 --> 00:38:10.380 align:middle line:84% I meet Richard at the Shanty for a beer. 00:38:10.380 --> 00:38:12.870 align:middle line:84% The beer comes in sweating mason jars. 00:38:12.870 --> 00:38:14.910 align:middle line:84% As you can see, I mix details up here. 00:38:14.910 --> 00:38:17.900 align:middle line:84% That's the lawyer at Harper & Row that's making me do that. 00:38:17.900 --> 00:38:20.910 align:middle line:84% You know that the beer in the sweating mason jars 00:38:20.910 --> 00:38:22.350 align:middle line:90% comes with the big "A", right? 00:38:22.350 --> 00:38:24.930 align:middle line:90% 00:38:24.930 --> 00:38:30.270 align:middle line:84% Served like that, it always reminds me of pee. 00:38:30.270 --> 00:38:33.150 align:middle line:84% "You misunderstand me," Richard says. 00:38:33.150 --> 00:38:36.330 align:middle line:84% He has a deep voice and he drawls slightly. 00:38:36.330 --> 00:38:38.850 align:middle line:90% "I have nothing against you. 00:38:38.850 --> 00:38:41.310 align:middle line:90% Nothing against your body. 00:38:41.310 --> 00:38:43.890 align:middle line:90% You have an elegant body." 00:38:43.890 --> 00:38:47.520 align:middle line:84% I'm tracing designs in water on the tan Formica table 00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:51.030 align:middle line:84% so that I won't have to look at him as he speaks. 00:38:51.030 --> 00:38:53.670 align:middle line:84% "It wouldn't matter to me," he goes on, 00:38:53.670 --> 00:38:56.580 align:middle line:90% "if you were Genevieve Bujold, 00:38:56.580 --> 00:39:00.200 align:middle line:90% Anne Tyler, Annie Dillard. 00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:05.080 align:middle line:84% I simply don't want a relationship with anyone." 00:39:05.080 --> 00:39:07.140 align:middle line:90% "I know all that." 00:39:07.140 --> 00:39:09.180 align:middle line:90% Now I look up. 00:39:09.180 --> 00:39:12.150 align:middle line:84% "Knowing doesn't make any difference. 00:39:12.150 --> 00:39:16.680 align:middle line:84% Some part of me is so crazy, it can't know anything." 00:39:16.680 --> 00:39:20.820 align:middle line:90% 00:39:20.820 --> 00:39:24.780 align:middle line:84% Bête Noire trains me to play fetch. 00:39:24.780 --> 00:39:26.010 align:middle line:90% I'm a slow learner. 00:39:26.010 --> 00:39:28.740 align:middle line:84% But eventually, it dawns on me that when 00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:30.570 align:middle line:84% she trots up with the ball in her teeth 00:39:30.570 --> 00:39:32.730 align:middle line:84% and drops it at my feet, she wants 00:39:32.730 --> 00:39:35.310 align:middle line:84% me to throw it so that she can retrieve it and return it 00:39:35.310 --> 00:39:37.320 align:middle line:90% for another toss. 00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:40.740 align:middle line:84% We entertain ourselves in this way by the hour, 00:39:40.740 --> 00:39:43.500 align:middle line:90% paddling in the sink too. 00:39:43.500 --> 00:39:46.770 align:middle line:84% That is, I'm there for the serious business of washing. 00:39:46.770 --> 00:39:49.200 align:middle line:84% But she's there for the paddling. 00:39:49.200 --> 00:39:53.750 align:middle line:84% My sink grows a bloom of little black paw prints. 00:39:53.750 --> 00:39:58.000 align:middle line:84% She monitors the roaring ebb and flow of water in the toilet. 00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:01.150 align:middle line:84% The cascade of the shower is too scary, though, 00:40:01.150 --> 00:40:04.000 align:middle line:84% and she perches anxiously outside the plastic curtain 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:07.030 align:middle line:90% until I re-emerge. 00:40:07.030 --> 00:40:10.090 align:middle line:84% Our apartment has only a small gas space heater, 00:40:10.090 --> 00:40:14.440 align:middle line:84% so it's always cold even though the winter is unusually mild. 00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:18.040 align:middle line:84% Bête sits in my lap with her head tucked into my sweater, 00:40:18.040 --> 00:40:20.530 align:middle line:90% like a sleepy bird. 00:40:20.530 --> 00:40:23.050 align:middle line:84% At night, we get into the sleeping bag 00:40:23.050 --> 00:40:26.230 align:middle line:84% and she curls between my arm and my ribs. 00:40:26.230 --> 00:40:28.720 align:middle line:84% In the morning, she leaps out onto the bookcase 00:40:28.720 --> 00:40:32.350 align:middle line:84% beside the bed, stretching her front paws up to the windowsill 00:40:32.350 --> 00:40:35.320 align:middle line:84% and chittering at the finches in the cedar trees. 00:40:35.320 --> 00:40:39.340 align:middle line:84% Daytimes, I sit in the sunshine outside the door, 00:40:39.340 --> 00:40:43.150 align:middle line:84% reading and watching her chase grasshoppers in the weeds. 00:40:43.150 --> 00:40:46.970 align:middle line:84% The ones she catches she brings to me for admiration, 00:40:46.970 --> 00:40:49.330 align:middle line:90% and then eats noisily. 00:40:49.330 --> 00:40:54.065 align:middle line:84% She is with me as I approach death and throughout my return 00:40:54.065 --> 00:40:54.565 align:middle line:90% to life. 00:40:54.565 --> 00:41:01.990 align:middle line:90% 00:41:01.990 --> 00:41:04.900 align:middle line:90% The telephone wakes me. 00:41:04.900 --> 00:41:09.280 align:middle line:84% Bête, too, uncurls herself from my side and stretches. 00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:10.690 align:middle line:90% The room is dark. 00:41:10.690 --> 00:41:12.520 align:middle line:90% I don't know what time it is. 00:41:12.520 --> 00:41:14.830 align:middle line:84% I squint at the clock, but my vision 00:41:14.830 --> 00:41:17.980 align:middle line:84% is too blurred to make out the glowing red numbers. 00:41:17.980 --> 00:41:22.700 align:middle line:84% The tinny radio is playing rock music softly. 00:41:22.700 --> 00:41:24.440 align:middle line:90% "Hello, dear." 00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:26.180 align:middle line:90% George's voice. 00:41:26.180 --> 00:41:28.730 align:middle line:90% "How are you?" 00:41:28.730 --> 00:41:30.690 align:middle line:90% "Not too good." 00:41:30.690 --> 00:41:31.920 align:middle line:90% I'm awake. 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:34.410 align:middle line:90% I'm talking on the telephone. 00:41:34.410 --> 00:41:36.730 align:middle line:90% "What's the matter?" 00:41:36.730 --> 00:41:38.800 align:middle line:90% "I took Elavil. 00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:40.990 align:middle line:90% A lot." 00:41:40.990 --> 00:41:43.890 align:middle line:90% "Oh my God." 00:41:43.890 --> 00:41:48.270 align:middle line:84% He draws the words out as though they really were a prayer. 00:41:48.270 --> 00:41:50.580 align:middle line:84% Later, he'll tell me that he's rehearsed 00:41:50.580 --> 00:41:54.900 align:middle line:84% this kind of conversation over and over in his head 00:41:54.900 --> 00:41:58.020 align:middle line:84% ever since my suicide attempt at Met State. 00:41:58.020 --> 00:42:02.900 align:middle line:84% But on this night, he hasn't given it a thought. 00:42:02.900 --> 00:42:04.010 align:middle line:90% "I'll be right there. 00:42:04.010 --> 00:42:06.940 align:middle line:90% Unlock the door for me." 00:42:06.940 --> 00:42:09.640 align:middle line:90% I don't know if I can. 00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:11.920 align:middle line:84% I'm lying in bed now, but I have jumbled 00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:14.860 align:middle line:84% memories of trying to get up and go to the bathroom. 00:42:14.860 --> 00:42:17.500 align:middle line:84% I couldn't stand, couldn't even kneel. 00:42:17.500 --> 00:42:20.470 align:middle line:84% I squirmed forward using my feet and elbows. 00:42:20.470 --> 00:42:22.780 align:middle line:84% And when they were all bloody, I turned over 00:42:22.780 --> 00:42:25.060 align:middle line:84% and scooted on my back, battering 00:42:25.060 --> 00:42:27.130 align:middle line:90% the knobs of my spine. 00:42:27.130 --> 00:42:30.640 align:middle line:84% The lock is too high to reach from the floor. 00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:33.190 align:middle line:84% "I'll bring a hammer to break the window," George says. 00:42:33.190 --> 00:42:35.440 align:middle line:90% "Just In case." 00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:38.200 align:middle line:84% I roll off the bed and wriggle toward the door. 00:42:38.200 --> 00:42:42.470 align:middle line:84% I'm in a lot of pain, but I feel stronger than I did before. 00:42:42.470 --> 00:42:44.060 align:middle line:90% I'm awake. 00:42:44.060 --> 00:42:45.980 align:middle line:84% Pulling myself upward by the doorknob, 00:42:45.980 --> 00:42:50.040 align:middle line:84% I flip the bolt before tumbling backward. 00:42:50.040 --> 00:42:52.200 align:middle line:84% The last time I tried to kill myself 00:42:52.200 --> 00:42:56.500 align:middle line:84% after swallowing the Darvon, I put on my prettiest robe. 00:42:56.500 --> 00:42:59.140 align:middle line:84% This time, I'm wearing a tatty nightgown 00:42:59.140 --> 00:43:03.100 align:middle line:84% I've had for years, smeared now with blood and urine. 00:43:03.100 --> 00:43:07.390 align:middle line:84% George bursts in, grabs my coat, shoves me into it. 00:43:07.390 --> 00:43:10.330 align:middle line:84% It's after 6:00 at night on the 1st of November. 00:43:10.330 --> 00:43:12.840 align:middle line:90% Chilly even in Tucson. 00:43:12.840 --> 00:43:17.540 align:middle line:84% George is shaking and swearing, madder than I've ever seen him. 00:43:17.540 --> 00:43:20.180 align:middle line:84% "Why didn't you tell me?" he asks. 00:43:20.180 --> 00:43:23.090 align:middle line:90% "I didn't tell anyone," I say. 00:43:23.090 --> 00:43:24.800 align:middle line:90% Only Richard, who forgot. 00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.350 align:middle line:90% 00:43:27.350 --> 00:43:30.050 align:middle line:90% The next day, Jose comes by. 00:43:30.050 --> 00:43:32.180 align:middle line:84% With the suicide attempt, he tells me, 00:43:32.180 --> 00:43:36.620 align:middle line:84% "I've finished something I had to do and I'm safe now." 00:43:36.620 --> 00:43:38.840 align:middle line:84% This might be wishful thinking born of guilt 00:43:38.840 --> 00:43:41.760 align:middle line:84% at having given me the pills in the first place, 00:43:41.760 --> 00:43:44.240 align:middle line:84% but in fact, he seems to be right. 00:43:44.240 --> 00:43:47.750 align:middle line:84% Either that or the whopping dose of antidepressant, not quite 00:43:47.750 --> 00:43:51.290 align:middle line:84% enough to kill me, blasted me straight out of my depression 00:43:51.290 --> 00:43:55.040 align:middle line:84% in a kind of shortcut to normalcy. 00:43:55.040 --> 00:43:58.100 align:middle line:84% In any event, although I go on grieving over Richard 00:43:58.100 --> 00:44:00.290 align:middle line:90% for a ridiculously long time-- 00:44:00.290 --> 00:44:02.570 align:middle line:90% a year, maybe more-- 00:44:02.570 --> 00:44:05.420 align:middle line:90% I no longer feel suicidal. 00:44:05.420 --> 00:44:08.150 align:middle line:84% Richard helps by shaving off his beard so 00:44:08.150 --> 00:44:11.090 align:middle line:84% that he no longer looks like the man I went to bed with, 00:44:11.090 --> 00:44:13.340 align:middle line:90% the one who threw me out. 00:44:13.340 --> 00:44:16.640 align:middle line:84% I eat greedily, packing weight on almost as rapidly 00:44:16.640 --> 00:44:18.080 align:middle line:90% as it melted off. 00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:20.030 align:middle line:90% I sleep through the night. 00:44:20.030 --> 00:44:23.750 align:middle line:84% I'm already becoming the woman who will one day sit across 00:44:23.750 --> 00:44:26.570 align:middle line:84% from Richard in a little restaurant on the Gulf 00:44:26.570 --> 00:44:30.020 align:middle line:84% Coast, to which he has long since returned, 00:44:30.020 --> 00:44:34.160 align:middle line:84% looking at his photos, chatting about mutual friends, 00:44:34.160 --> 00:44:37.310 align:middle line:84% and forget until hours later to check herself 00:44:37.310 --> 00:44:40.100 align:middle line:84% for the pangs of love the way people who've 00:44:40.100 --> 00:44:44.810 align:middle line:84% had cancer palpate themselves nervously for new tumors. 00:44:44.810 --> 00:44:48.800 align:middle line:84% When she does check, nothing's there but the scar. 00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:50.210 align:middle line:90% And she can hardly see that. 00:44:50.210 --> 00:44:53.020 align:middle line:90% 00:44:53.020 --> 00:44:55.450 align:middle line:84% The poems and stories keep coming. 00:44:55.450 --> 00:44:58.510 align:middle line:84% And in the spring I start writing essays too, 00:44:58.510 --> 00:45:02.530 align:middle line:84% which combine the delights of poetry and prose for me. 00:45:02.530 --> 00:45:05.740 align:middle line:84% They are carnal acts, enabling me 00:45:05.740 --> 00:45:09.590 align:middle line:84% to inscribe the earthly life I've tried to flee. 00:45:09.590 --> 00:45:16.370 align:middle line:84% Its tricks, its sweet poisons, they disenchant me. 00:45:16.370 --> 00:45:18.210 align:middle line:90% I'm awake. 00:45:18.210 --> 00:45:21.135 align:middle line:84% And I will write myself into well being. 00:45:21.135 --> 00:45:24.940 align:middle line:90% 00:45:24.940 --> 00:45:27.130 align:middle line:84% One night at the beginning of February, Bête 00:45:27.130 --> 00:45:29.780 align:middle line:90% runs out when I opened the door. 00:45:29.780 --> 00:45:31.690 align:middle line:90% I don't think much about it. 00:45:31.690 --> 00:45:33.640 align:middle line:90% She's done it before. 00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:36.400 align:middle line:84% But this time she doesn't come back. 00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:38.560 align:middle line:84% In the morning, I call George, who comes 00:45:38.560 --> 00:45:40.390 align:middle line:90% to search the neighborhood. 00:45:40.390 --> 00:45:43.830 align:middle line:84% In a while, he knocks at my door. 00:45:43.830 --> 00:45:47.580 align:middle line:84% "Oh, sweetheart," he says, reaching for me. 00:45:47.580 --> 00:45:50.650 align:middle line:90% "She's dead." 00:45:50.650 --> 00:45:52.840 align:middle line:84% She was hit and killed instantly, he's learned, 00:45:52.840 --> 00:45:58.490 align:middle line:84% and someone called the Humane Society to take her away. 00:45:58.490 --> 00:46:02.780 align:middle line:84% So she's the only one who doesn't rest in our boneyard. 00:46:02.780 --> 00:46:06.200 align:middle line:84% I have loved all our cats, perhaps. 00:46:06.200 --> 00:46:09.410 align:middle line:84% Except an ungainly black and white creature 00:46:09.410 --> 00:46:12.080 align:middle line:90% named the Princess Saralinda. 00:46:12.080 --> 00:46:15.740 align:middle line:84% And I will love the ones to come. 00:46:15.740 --> 00:46:17.900 align:middle line:90% But none like Bête. 00:46:17.900 --> 00:46:22.430 align:middle line:84% Aunt Jane says that for every person, there's one cat. 00:46:22.430 --> 00:46:25.180 align:middle line:90% And I-- maybe she's right. 00:46:25.180 --> 00:46:28.540 align:middle line:90% Hers was Otello, the Black Man. 00:46:28.540 --> 00:46:31.180 align:middle line:90% Now I've had mine. 00:46:31.180 --> 00:46:35.230 align:middle line:84% Over and over, I called her the beast of my heart. 00:46:35.230 --> 00:46:40.160 align:middle line:84% Speaking in silliness more truly, I think, than I knew. 00:46:40.160 --> 00:46:45.770 align:middle line:84% We should all have some time during our tricky lives 00:46:45.770 --> 00:46:49.530 align:middle line:84% the thing we can love unconditionally, 00:46:49.530 --> 00:46:51.660 align:middle line:90% without measure. 00:46:51.660 --> 00:46:56.050 align:middle line:84% Not because it is good and tries to please us, 00:46:56.050 --> 00:46:58.945 align:middle line:84% but because it is beautiful and makes us laugh. 00:46:58.945 --> 00:47:01.590 align:middle line:90% 00:47:01.590 --> 00:47:04.800 align:middle line:84% At school, I don't mention her death to many people. 00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.550 align:middle line:84% I have no friends close enough to understand my loss. 00:47:08.550 --> 00:47:10.740 align:middle line:84% When I get home, I start to call out, 00:47:10.740 --> 00:47:13.170 align:middle line:90% "Is there a beast in the house?" 00:47:13.170 --> 00:47:16.080 align:middle line:84% before I recall that there isn't. 00:47:16.080 --> 00:47:18.120 align:middle line:90% Anne comes over. 00:47:18.120 --> 00:47:21.540 align:middle line:84% Leaning over the back of a chair, I talk and cry, 00:47:21.540 --> 00:47:23.040 align:middle line:90% and she lets me. 00:47:23.040 --> 00:47:26.610 align:middle line:84% And then we both laugh because I've wept a puddle on the floor 00:47:26.610 --> 00:47:29.900 align:middle line:90% worthy of Alice in Wonderland. 00:47:29.900 --> 00:47:46.000 align:middle line:90%