Cindy on February 26th, 2009
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? — Satchel Paige
Whether we use Nice ‘n Easy to hide our graying temples or refuse to show our drivers’ licenses, most of us secretly hope to appear younger than we are. But why is it so hard for smart women to age honestly? Last month, I polled several of my middle-aged female friends and colleagues, asking if they lie about their age. Since I promised not to use their real names, the answers that came back to me were candid â and as eye-opening as Olay’s best anti-wrinkle serum. Read more in this week’s MIDPOINT column in The Oakland Press.
Cindy on March 8th, 2008
OK, I’m back…. It was very hard returning to Michigan’s relentless, snowy winter this weekend. And while it seems crass and cruel to admit that I just spent two weeks on a beach in southern Florida, I’m proud to boast that I read four good books (and countless newspaper and magazine articles) while working on my sunburn. I’ll be sharing/reviewing these discoveries over the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, memoirs of all kinds have been making the news — good news to those of us who love to read, write, and teach the memoir. USA Today recently ran a big feature on the ever-growing popularity of telling our own stories. On the bad news front, several memoirists were exposed in other media, a la James Frey, for falsifying their life stories. Given our shameless culture of celebrity, it should come as no surprise that some writers will do anything — even lie — to get published. We can only hope they won’t ultimately trash the literary credibility of the memoir and other autobiographical writing.
Thanks to a recommendation on “The Think Club” Web site, I got a copy of Michael Gates Gill’s new midlife memoir, How Starbucks Saved My Life. It’s a quick, charming read — and much less self-indulgent than most of the “spiritual memoirs” on the bestseller lists lately. The privileged son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill, Michael Gates Gill was educated at Yale and enjoyed a stellar career at J. Walter Thompson until he was fired for being…middle-aged. It sounds like your average midlife crisis, but Gill is a good storyteller, with sparkling anecdotes detailing his privileged background and the (often insane) world of high-end advertising.
Gill admits upfront that his ego-fueled quest for success did irreparable damage to his kids, marriage, and family life. His memoir chronicles his personal and professional crisis — and, amazingly, what led him to take a full-time job behind the counter at Starbucks.
I recently taught a memoir class using William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, and found that Gill relies on the same principles of good nonfiction writing: clarity, brevity, and humanity. His prose is crisp and highly relatable. This book should be a hit with Baby Boomers forced into early retirement, like Gill, or those who are questioning their values and vocation. Best of all, Gill reminds us that menial tasks and “ordinary” work can be paths to spiritual awakening, and that celebrity and privilege are rarely more than glimmers on a slippery surface.
This memoir broke my heart with its candor — and I can see why The Think Club chose it as their Book of the Year for 2007. –CL
Cindy on February 20th, 2008
“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” — Joni Mitchell
L
ike most parents, my husband and I encourage our son’s independence and want him to feel at home in the world. Our work as parents is nearing fulfillment, and we’re excited about his upcoming college graduation and move to Chicago. Best of all, bolts of free time unfold luxuriously now, and there’s more space for âjust the two of us.â Sometimes, though, the speed at which our son has approached adulthood makes me a little sad and nostalgic. Sad, because I miss him when he’s away at college. Nostalgic, because my starring role as âMomâ is fading to a cameo.
I used to wonder if this letting go business was harder on parents who have only one child. Not so, a friend told me recently. A social worker, my friend has two daughters — one my son’s age, and the other a senior in high school. As soon as her college student drove back to school after Christmas break, my friend âcried for an hourâ on her living room couch. Another friend, a new empty nester, says he copes with his son’s absence by keeping the boy’s bedroom door closed when he’s away at college. Not because the room is a mess, but because it looks so darned ⦠unoccupied.
Change isn’t for the timid. It can take a while to adjust to this season of parenthood. Meanwhile, it’s normal to feel unmoored by changes in your household; normal to feel dizzy riding the emotional roller coaster while your kid divides his time neatly between âhomeâ and a campus on the other side of the state. I’m currently at work on a book on this topic, and welcome additional input from other midlife parents who are facing the same transition. – CL
