What I am doing here
It's time for a clarification. Plus, some breaking news!
Someone kind and well meaning wrote me an email last week to let me know that they feel so, so sorry for me. This person intended to convey that it matters to them that I am ill. I am glad they read my work and reacted to it. I know they are trying to find a way to tell me that they wish this wasn’t happening to me. (Thank you, person! I hope you will stay in touch and keep reading me). But it made me think that it might be time to re-clarify what I am trying to do here.
I don’t want to be someone people feel sorry for, someone pitiable. It’s not who I am. Yes, things have never been harder for me. Yes, my prognosis is grim. But I have no use for pity.
I am sick, but I am also working every day. I am sick but I am also making dinner every night. I am sick but I am also running lines with my daughter, taking ballet classes, going for hikes, talking with friends, counseling other writers, joining communities, watching French detective stories with my husband, traveling as far as I am able, editing books. trying to sell my new novels. I am a whole person, is what I am saying. I am not simply “a cancer patient.” All of us in treatment for cancer are so much more.
I want to be clear that I am not writing this weekly column to solicit pity. I am writing to connect with all of you out there also dwelling in liminal spaces. To think through with you what it means to live in these spaces. How to survive them, flourish in them as far as we are able. I am writing to share my life with you. I am also writing because more than anything else, it helps to pull me through the days. As I just wrote to a former student, the moment I am seated (or standing) at my desk with a (very large, very strong) cup of coffee and my notebook or computer, the moment I begin to write, it changes everything.
Listen, my cancer has not dimmed my ambitions. I am more ambitious for my work than I have ever been, more passionate about getting it out to the world. I have never written more. I have never had such a pressing deadline. Rather than pity, I desire your admiration for the things I achieve. The works I create.
So if I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, why do I write about everything that is happening to me? Why do I tell you about my pessimistic oncologists and failed chemos and parenting struggles? Because I want you to know that if you are going through any of these things, you are not alone. Because I want to communicate with you from an honest place. This is simply where I am. It does not mean you need to treat me like delicate china. It does not mean you need to change how you talk with me. Please don’t change how you talk with me! I need you to be the friends and loved ones you have always been, not weird polite people backing slowly away from me, for fear my tragedy is contagious.
Remember me as the woman who danced on bars in Manhattan, who ran the NYC marathon, who stripped naked to play a prostitute at the Young Vic in London, who couldn’t hold down a day job, who made friends on subways, who ate refried beans out of the can because she was too lazy to heat them up, who passed out in a Costa Rican brothel, who explored the Bolivian Amazonian forests, who moved to Yemen to run a newspaper, who performed in Seattle and New York theatres, who never learned to respect boundaries, who took mad risks, who loved deeply, and who writes.
Above all, remember me as a writer. Not as a cancer patient, withering away. Remember what is important about me. My cancer is ultimately not an important part of me. It can kill me, but it cannot take away who I AM.
Instead of feeling sorry for me, you could, if you felt inclined (no pressure!), do something simple to support the most important part of me. You could read my books (The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, The Ambassador’s Wife, Exile Music), which I hope have something to offer you. If you love them, recommend them to your book group, to your friends and family. If you are a fellow author, invite me to be in conversation with you for your virtual book events (I love to support my author friends!). If you’re an editor looking for memoirs, my readers here keep sending me notes asking that these essays become one. I have a book proposal for you – not just about living in liminal spaces but about my diplomatic life. Rather than feeling sorry for me, subscribe to Liminal. Tell your friends. Send them gift subscriptions. Rather than feeling sorry for me, help support my work and family, if you are able.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you so much homework! Really all I need from you is that you be here, as you are. I also love to hear from you, when you have time. It made my week to hear from a former student about how he remembers me. It made my week that a fellow writer sent me a letter to my daughter.
I will send a second post this week, with something more entertaining. Oh—and I just found out literally five minutes ago that I have an appointment in Paris IN PERSON, TOMORROW. Cross your fingers for a trial! I have to go find a train ticket and a place to stay… Love.
I love this so much. As someone who has written extensively about my struggle with mental illness, I know what you mean about readers understanding you are more than your illness, despite its presence in your writing. I feel like you are helping people understand liminal spaces with your writing. I am learning a lot from you — and I appreciate this reminder. xxoo
I believe that, in the night during an especially hard time about a month ago, I sent you a very depressing message-- meant to convey how much I appreciate your writing honestly about how to find joy) meaning/whatever word you want to use in the face of a devastating diagnosis. But for weeks afterwards I felt bad for having sent that; I, like you, do not want to be defined by my illness and certainly don't think of you as "cancer patient."
So I decided to stop waiting for my turn to come up on the wait lists in the various Library systems I use for Excel music and just went ahead and bought it. Amazing and powerful and so very fitting for our times. And I am going to buy a copy for my young nephew who is finishing a masters in Vienna and just gave conference paper on an event related to the Anschluss.