Women’s Issues

The Call of the Child

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When I was enormously pregnant with my first child, I moaned to my husband that my career as a writer was over. With pregnancy it seemed my brain had turned to mush, and writing, or any other intellectual or creative pursuit would certainly be out of the question. The only creativity I could muster was in the kitchen, preparing myself one of the endless meals I seemed to require in my whale-like state.

The pregnancy ended in the birth of a chubby little girl with spiky hair who only slept in three-hour spurts, as babies are wont to do. Again, I cried tales of woe to my patient husband that now not only was my brain the consistency of gummy, gray oatmeal, but I was also hallucinating due to extreme sleep deprivation.

He suggested that I write about it. Continue reading →

A Woman’s Guide to Guilt

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(This essay was originally published in the mid-90s, but amazingly, it still applies to today…)

I think we are in danger of becoming a nation of perfectionists. Lately I have noticed a certain feeling of collective guilt in people that I have never been aware of before.

Take my friend Arabella. She recycles everything, uses cloth diapers, is President of the PTA, bakes homemade zucchini breads for the homeless, and is generally perfect at everything. Her husband has low cholesterol, thanks to her “heart healthy” way of cooking, and her children are well-behaved and get all A’s.

I went over to see her the other day, and she was depressed. This is not like Arabella, who always has a smile on her face, and a needlework project in her hands to work on if she has three unscheduled minutes. Continue reading →

Dead Husbands: The Literary Kind

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It all started when my husband (very much alive) called me a coward. And a wuss, and a sniveling good girl who still clung to her high school newspaper editor roots. You like me, you really like me seemed to be the enduring theme of my years of essay, feature and short story writing. I had become a skilled practitioner of the 750 word essay, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, but always safe. I plumbed the first few inches, but not the depths of the human psyche. Still, those few inches yielded some good writing – well over three-hundred published essays; work that I am proud of.

A funny thing happened along the way though. As I kept writing short fiction, trying like hell to master that form, trying to learn from the true masters – Alice Munro, Carol Shields, John Updike, Richard Ford, Roxana Robinson – I noticed a recurring theme in my work. There were an awful lot of dead husbands in my stories. Actually it was my husband who noticed, perhaps more than a little nervously. Be afraid, be very afraid… Continue reading →

At What Point Do We Become Involved?

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(This essay is reprinted here from a column I used to write for The Beach Reporter in Manhattan Beach, CA.  Even though I wrote it twenty-five years ago, it still seems appropriate to post.)

Living in a country where individual freedom is valued so highly is something most of us treasure. In the news every day are stories of individuals standing up for what they believe are their God-given rights. Presumably they are able to do so because of the democratic system we operate under.

The individual right to choose a religion, to choose where we want to live, to marry or have sexual relations with whomever we choose, to carry a picket sign against the spraying of malathion. These are all rights that we as individuals take for granted.

Of course, individual rights are not left completely up to man’s will.  As a society we do recognize that there must be laws and rules governing some of our actions. These laws are carried out on the premise that they are for the “common good.” Such laws as those prohibiting minors from purchasing alcohol or operating motor vehicles, preventing people from purchasing firearms on a whim, or preventing us from raising roosters in our yards are agreed on by consensus.

Then there is a gray area. A big gray area. In fact, the whole issue of individual rights could be regarded as a gray area. As some would say, “Your individual rights end at my front yard.” Continue reading →