Reading, writing...that's what I do.

Love for the printed word, love and belief in ideas.

WHAT IS LIMINAL SPACE and WHY IT’S OUR NEW NORMAL

March 23, 2025 4 Comments

After 9-11 life was totally altered for all of us. As a writer, I sat and stared at my manuscript, wondering if anyone would ever read a novel again. Should I even bother. Normality had escaped us, and now I feel something like that is recurring. Back then, a friend offered me some insight. It came in the words of Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest whose teaching is like that of the first St. Francis: empty yourself, be compassionate of others, especially those that are socially marginalized. Okay. How do I do that when I am angry and confused…

Rohr spoke of liminal space—and despite my many years of study and reading, those were words I had never heard.

He defined it as: …a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be… It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else… It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust, wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing. 


Thus, I had found a label for what I was feeling, what millions were feeling: liminal space—this terrible cloud of unknowing.

And it truly was a terrible time—but ever so slowly we went back to work, children went back to school and life haltingly proceeded. My husband had lost a co-worker who had been at the hotel attached to one of the towers, his body never found. More images of that day were released and they pinned us to this new and frightening liminal space. It was a horrible new norm, but all we could do was go on. For many—even that did not happen. There was too much pain and sorrow to allow forward movement. Adjustments were indescribable, unlivable.

When I finally sat at the keyboard and wrote again, I injected the concept of liminal space. It felt right. My character was truly living there.

But you know what? Often—we all are. Because we are always waiting for something: a job, a pregnancy, a graduation, a diagnosis, an acceptance letter, even a death; or a yes from someone who is holding what feels like the rest of our lives over our heads…until the yes comes through. Until then, we are under that cloud of unknowing.

Regardless, there is often good news, as there was post-9-11. We saw, heard and felt the warmth, love, understanding and the giving of many Americans who did whatever they could to help those who had lost someone. Later, it was young men, women who joined our volunteer army, feeling that the best way to give.

Certainly, liminal space always challenges us. We are rarely free of the unknowing—because ah, yes, we are mortal and have no knowledge of the date of our demise. That’s a given. But it can be used to power our love of self (taking care of our bodies) and the love of those we live and work with. For how much better to offer understanding, honesty, friendship on a daily basis—because who really knows what the next hours bring.

Pain can provide all of us with teachable moments. Though we find ourselves in liminal space, on the threshold of something unknowable, we forge always ahead:

the cancer patient who goes into remission and dedicates her time to helping other patients; the teacher who takes extra time to work with the very student who upsets his classroom; the doctor or nurse who enters the clinic despite life-threats; the cop who does all he can to make certain-sure before using deadly force; the mother, father, neighbor, citizen who listens and evaluates any situation before making a judgment or rising to anger.

After 9-11 Rohr reminded us that both Christian and Muslim mystics preferred the language of darkness. That is: they were most at home in the realm of not-knowing. In that darkness, Rohr writes, things are more spacious and open to creative response. We are more open to letting in God or blessed, positive thoughts–just like the cancer patient who is grateful for every day and turns darkness into light. This from the Persian mystic Hafiz:

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you.

Finally, in this time of questioning, where we find ourselves often divided, even from friends and loved ones who feel and think differently than we do, try to accept and live in the cloud of unknowing. Try to move a bit closer to the other side or try to find something they share with you. It can be very challenging and just downright hard. But remember, you are both in liminal space, not truly knowing all.

Literature–inspirational books, poetry, memoirs, reflections–can serve as guides. There is actually a website devoted to liminal space that can help lift that cloud. Music allows all cultures to come together sharing dance, songs and just the joy of listening. Do you remember the film, the Hundred Foot Journey? It underlines that people and cultures that are vastly different can cross the threshold and come to a place where there is not only knowing, but also sharing and love. Because we truly have no choice, but to often life on the threshold, uncertain of which path to take. We exist in this liminal space, a new normal that we must accept and work with, so that the cloud of unknowing will be transformed into one of understanding. 

How do you deal with your own pain? And thanks to Fr. Rohr, artist Aeron Brown, and the artist below.   

A GIFT FROM MY CHILDREN: THEY HELPED ME SEE My TRUE SELF  

March 16, 2025 4 Comments

When I was a child, a daughter growing up, I reflected my mother’s image—her habits, nuances, even her opinions.

I  was a mirror. She could look at me and see aspects of herself. But then, I didn’t truly know who I was becoming, though later I changed, advanced, fell backward, tried again, grew. Others saw the changes. I did not…growing up is equal to change. I was just me.

When I became the mother of two girls, they began to reflect and mirror my image, my words, ideas, habits and actions. Gazing into their faces, listening to their speech, observing their choices revealed things about myself. I could see my tendency to be over-cautious in one daughter. “Mom, you shouldn’t carry all those books down the stairs.” The other sometimes reflected my crazier moments, “I’m punk today, Ma, just call me Punky Weirdo.” One liked her room neat and tidy (so me). One liked a sunny messy corner to read in. One would cry easily when hurt by a friend. That’s me too.  And they both were tender to our cat and any child who visited. So okay, I must be doing something right.

VERBAL INFLUENCE

So much of what we do and say around our children, and now around our grandchildren, they take into themselves. Listen!. You will hear phrasing, tone of voice, word choice. My daughter remarked recently that she gets why she uses the word “literally” as emphasis. “Both you and dad just used it in the last five minutes!”  To underline her statement, moments later when Keegan was only four, he walked into the kitchen and said, “It’s really hot out there, Mom, I mean literally.”

This word usage thing is generational, stretching forward and backward. Sometimes when I’m speaking I have no control over what comes out—it is my mother: her inflection, her vocabulary, and often her ideas. I can be my mother, so kind and gentle with a sick child, yet so impatient when things aren’t flowing my way. Is that a good thing?

The answer: we do finally decide, I want to be myself. My own self. Not my parent as we grow, make our own decisions and even as we use our own way of expressing feelings and thoughts. 

And luckily, for both parent and child, we don’t become exact copies. We are finding the paths of choice. Yes, we bring along parental things, but we also change things up—more and more we grow to be just ourselves.

I guess we’re like pieces of glass, catching beams of light, casting them off into the darkness or bouncing them into other pieces of glass. We affect and reflect one another.

And if we have performed our parental tasks well, our children give us back the gift of seeing the best parts of ourselves.  They change others’ lives for the good. They earn a degree, a paycheck, start a company, make a good marriage—and there is something of us in those choices. There is also something of us in the first argument or maybe a divorce, or a job loss. When we parent, we bargain that most of the gifts from our children and grandchildren will be positive and confirming. It’s always been our responsibility to be good models, so that the mirror we eventually look into—the lives of our children—will be good, the light they are beaming out will be mostly bright and positive. It’s a light that we started and that will be carried along to the generations that follow—it’s that gift from our children.

I’M SORRY FOR MY LOSS   Review:  Elizabeth A. Havey

March 9, 2025 6 Comments

The cover of this amazing, well-researched, open-hearted book, written by Rebecca Little and Collen Long, acts as a preview for the reader…but only if you take your time, look carefully, and open both heart and mind.

The book’s title, I’M SORRY FOR MY….LOSS, immediately indicates that this is a serious, well-researched work, one that discusses women’s health and pregnancy, one that focuses on things that can go wrong, thus permanently affecting a woman’s life and her reproductive future. The writers intent, which they have definitely achieved, is to take a hard, well-researched look at women’s health and a women’s physiology, both of which are known to NOT always deliver the longed-for child.

I’M SORRY FOR MY LOSS examines the specific health needs of women, but also the lack of CARE that women in these changing times often experience at the hands of both male and female gynecologists. If you saw this book online or in a bookstore…and if you were hesitating, don’t! Or maybe you are uncertain as to the approach of the authors. If so, keep reading. Knowledge is power, this being 400 plus pages of research and personal experience that examines and presents in detail: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, Abortion, Patient Rights, even Grief— all amazing information that EVERY woman of reproductive age needs.

LONG AND LITTLE: We Write from Experience  

There is one major difference that makes this book extraordinary in content and readability: the writers aren’t summarizing research and interviews. They are writing from painful and difficult personal experience, in addition to doing research before, during and after pregnancy. In our current cultural climate, the work of these two writers and its resultant statements emphasize and inform us of the dead ends, the outright ignorance and arrogance that we women have endured, are still enduring and might once again encounter, when seeking healthcare for our female bodies.  

Example one: Pregnancy Loss. It is hard to believe, that in the wealthy United States of America, we still have an embarrassingly high rate of infant mortality, and that such a rate is expected to rise in the aftermath of the Supreme Court reversing abortion protection. Authors, Little and Long, write that the United States has 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, a shocking rate. The United Kingdom is the next closest, their numbers being much lower:10.9 per 100,000 births. And for Black women in the United States…it is a frightening 69.9 deaths per 100,00 births. Little and Long: “This data of Black women…makes them nearly three times more likely to die than white women during pregnancy or within a year of the end of the pregnancy. Black women are also far more likely to suffer miscarriage, stillbirth, and other complications.”

Little and Long write that NONE of this reflects well on our healthcare system. Anushay Hossain, in her book Pain Gap, makes a strong case as to how women of color are treated: “Maternal mortality ratios tell us how well a country’s healthcare system in general is functioning. In America, our maternal mortality rates are a stark reminder of how little we actually value women’s health.”

The authors also quote Dr. Sarah Prager, an ob-gyn and professor at the University of Washington: “It’s really under-appreciated that pregnancy is dangerous.” Prager stresses that this danger includes all women, but especially women of color. A recent study of Black women in the United States revealed that impact: “Research on obstetric health inequities is notable, with Black communities experiencing higher rates of preterm birth, low birth weight, infant mortality, and maternal mortality.”  

RACISM and WOMEN’S HEALTHCARE

Little and Long quote Jamila Taylor, a reproductive rights advocate. “Dealing with racism in our daily lives is a major factor in our health and well-being. The experience of racism makes Black people sick, whether it’s mental and emotional health or even physical health.”

Taylor said that many Black women have approached her, admitting they are afraid to get pregnant, they worry they will not survive it. This fear dates back to historically mistrusting white doctors: the Tuskegee Institute promoting forced sterilizations; Henrietta Lacks, her family not knowing for years that her blood and tissues were being used for experimentation. And the most frightening…statistics revealing that the infant mortality rate of Black infants is only cut in half when women are cared for by Black doctors.

Please consider Tori Bowie, an Olympic gold medal sprinter, who died while pregnant, her white doctors refusing to truly listen to her. They needed to do simple testing, thus finding: elevated blood pressure, protein in her urine. They needed to listen to her complaints: headaches, shortness of breath—classic symptoms of pre-eclampsia. Bowie was eight months pregnant when she died, alone in her home. Other black athletes have admitted that their doctors ignored physical complaints. Thus, Little and Long conclude: “If doctors won’t pay attention to Black athletes, then Black women in general don’t stand a chance.”

WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND GRIEF   

Now, because of DOBBS, there are more women seeking abortions, the authors providing research concerning what some might call, THE DOBBS EFFECT. The “gold standard” in medical miscarriage management is the abortion regimen—mifepristone combined with misoprostol. But due to the FDA’s extra regulation of mifepristone (and numerous lawsuits), many patients are now offered only misoprostol. There is also disagreement in timing: the FDA: use allowed up to 9 weeks. The World Health Organization: use allowed up to 12 weeks. The writers believe that in states where a procedure is not available, more pregnant woman will be forced to rely on medication even later in a pregnancy. But after Row fell, and because of rape, Morgan Nuzzo, who is trained in all-trimester abortions, created a clinic in Maryland. She now reports a heart-breaking reality: seeing children every week, some as young as nine. Her clinic also takes care of people who have developed disabilities and/or are nonverbal. The clinic keeps tissue samples for pathology, so detectives can try to locate these rapists.                                         

ABORTION, STILLBIRTH

Many restrictive laws have been heavily influenced by Evangelical Christianity, and that includes the doctrine stating that women should suffer punishment for original sin. If you die in childbirth or because of an abortion, it’s God’s will. Don’t blame them, blame Eve, ye old original bitch. 

Jen Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council under President Biden, told authors Long and Little: “There is a strong contingent of extreme, mostly politicians, but also judges, who either don’t see or don’t want to see the effect these laws are having on women’s health care more generally.” Klein then added: “Pregnancy loss of very wanted pregnancies is one example at the heart of the problem.”  

Yes, it certainly is. The authors have also explored another aspect of women, pregnancy and THE LAW, citing a case in 1999, when Regina McKnight became the first woman in the U.S. to be prosecuted and convicted for having a stillborn…this according to a legal scholar, Michele Goodwin. Knight served a decade in prison before her conviction was overturned, the prosecutor saying he wanted to make her an example: “If you kill a child by showing extreme indifference to human life, then you’re guilty of homicide by child abuse…” McKnight’s conviction was eventually overturned in 2008, due to faulty scientific evidence presented at the trial, though by then, she had already served a decade in prison. This, because many people in power are ignorant concerning pregnancy, birth and post-partum. They are literally harming pregnant and post-partum women with laws created out of ignorance…laws made by men who know how to get a woman pregnant, but who truly do not understand the biology of pregnancy and birth.

Because of intense research, and personal experience, Little and Long have written a book that presents facts and history related to pregnancy, loss, and other elements subsumed in those categories. It is a personal work, a book of knowledge, but also caring. The authors stress that many women who have lost a pregnancy go on to help with charity events, their work done in their baby’s name. Women also lobby for changes in the system. Little and Long beautifully refer to their efforts as “parenting a legacy”.

THE STORIES WE TELL: The Authors Refer to it as: A QUIET RIOT

When should a woman reveal that she is pregnant? Kate Watson writes in Scarlet A: Ethics, Law and Politics of Ordinary Abortion, referred to the silence that often accompanies the realization that one is pregnant…the “cultural confinement period” …a version of the Victorian rule that women could not go out in public when visibly pregnant. Wow, what would they say today? In our culture, we might guess that keeping a new pregnancy a secret until it is established and  visible, means either the woman is making sure all is well, or she is admitting, “I didn’t want this, I don’t know what to do.”  

The authors also stress that pregnancy loss is not uncommon: between ½ and 1/3 of women will experience a pregnancy loss; one in four women will have an abortion. Misunderstanding as to what causes a miscarriage is also widespread. Lifting a heavy object, using an IUD or birth control were once popular explanations for a miscarriage. But at least half of miscarriages are due to chromosomal issues, a genetic mismatch…that cannot be controlled. The authors then underline that it is comical, that many pregnant women wait until their first trimester to move the fridge to the basement. Really?? But maybe this is a joke I have not encountered!

What readers do need to know, is that there is a bounty of information, advice and expertly-presented research in I’m Sorry for My Loss. As a former Labor and Delivery RN, I applaud not only the authors personal strength and positivity, but also their excellent and thorough research. This book required belief in the project, persistence in doing research, asking questions, and getting answers: the latter not easy when questioning some doctors!

Long and Little are to be applauded for their openness, honesty, and the ability to share their own experiences, their own pain. The book is beautifully organized and well-researched. It is truly a handbook for all women, accessible and easy to read, a guide proving that personal revelations help support female understanding and female hope.

The book also provides a clear message: women, no matter their age, background or connection to doctors and other medical staff, will often need to rely on personal strength. And more importantly, they must rely on and USE their ability to ASK questions. Medical people are people. Don’t hesitate. Ask questions, any question, especially if you are experiencing sorrow and anxiety. And after reading this guide, I hope there will be a voice in your head, one urging you to ask questions, to not hold back. When visiting with a doctor, midwife or doula, you might carry with you a copy of the chapter: PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR OVARIES…just as a reminder!  

And remember: this is book of warmth and encouragement. It is also a book of the realities of loss…as the title emphasizes. I encourage every woman of child-bearing age to read this well researched and honest look at Women’s Healthcare. Whether you have just started to menstruate, want to be pregnant, have already given birth or are going through “the change”, information about your female body, your ability to reproduce, must be part of you. This book can act like a shield: because with information, your ability to understand reproduction, pregnancy and birth is enhanced. You have always had the strength to make you own choices…now you have more tools. Now you will agree: your female strengths MUST BE PROTECTED.  

  

IF YOU CAN, EMBRACE YOUR STRESS

March 2, 2025 5 Comments

Can stress be a good thing? Can it heighten experience, help bring individual creativity to our work? 

YES. “Stress illuminates our values,” says Dr. Larina Kase psychologist, author. “If we didn’t care about something, we wouldn’t worry about it.” Also, Daniela Kaufer, doctor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley states: “You always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it’s not. Some amounts of stress are good to push you just to the level of optimal alertness, behavioral and cognitive performance.”

These researchers often say that the most stressful job you will ever have is also the best. 

STUDIES CONCERNING BURSTS OF STRESS 

Dr. Kaufer found in studies with rats, that brief stressful events caused the stem cells in their brains to proliferate into new nerve cells…and two weeks later, when the cells matured, they exhibited improved mental performance.

Conclusion: acute stress – short-lived, not chronic – primes the brain for improved performance. “I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Dr. Kaufer states. 

That would certainly apply to careers like policing, fire fighters, ER medicine, anything that requires keeping people safe in a short amount of time.

WAYS YOU KNOW YOU WERE UNDER STRESS … and you then felt a major change. It’s called  decompression. When I worked the 3-11 shift and was racing home along the Dan Ryan Expressway, I was still going over my charting–did I remember to do this? But once off that roadway, I often pulled out my phone, calling the unit to check with the night staff. Then much later, when I finally got into bed, I could feel my body vibrating, like a string on an instrument that refuses to settle.

But I was fortunate to work part time. Yes, there were Monday mornings after a working weekend when I could hardly get out of bed. But days off gave me time to care for my family, plan babysitting, meals, and spend more time with my daughter and son–one in high school , one in grade school. I wanted to “have it all” — family, home, amazing career. And I did. But I also learned about the stress. The glamour of working and parenting–well, it isn’t always that glamourous.

HOW MUCH STRESS IS TOO MUCH…IN ANY OCCUPATION? 

Dr. Kaufer: “I think the ultimate message is an optimistic one. Stress can be something that makes you better, but it is a question of how much, how long and how you interpret or perceive it.”  Paul J. Rosch MD, president of the American Institute of Stress compares stress to the tension in a violin string. “Not enough produces a dull, raspy noise, and too much results in an annoying shrill or snaps the string. However, just the right amount of stress creates pleasing sounds.”  

Being addicted to stress isn’t good for overall health, but used correctly, it can help you achieve a goal—as long as you train your body to relax in the achievement of that goal. Downtime is important.

“Stress is a burst of energy,” says psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Tan of Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “It’s our body telling us what we need to do.”

DO YOU LOVE A JOB THAT IS STRESSFUL?  

You probably do if it encompasses moderate amounts of stress, that sudden burst described above. You get the cascade of hormones that helps your mind and body rise to the occasion, perform the needed task. And your brain remembers. During stress you are emotionally challenged, but you are also mostly in control–and when it’s over, you have a sense of accomplishment.

Some experts even say that this kind of stress improves heart function and makes the body resistant to infection. And of course it stimulates us–in a good way. “Focus the energy like a laser beam on what you need to do,” says Dr. Tan. “Very successful people, rather than feeling disempowered, take the extra stress energy … and make it into a high-energy, positive situation.” I think that’s why many ER doctors and nurses, firefighters and other people employed in stressful jobs stay healthy and love the work they do.

HEALTHY TAKE-AWAY 

Constant exposure from stress hormones, the fight or flight response, can cause high blood pressure, depression, mental fogginess, frequent colds, autoimmune diseases like arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. It’s necessary to be aware of stressful periods and to learn from them. What are your symptoms? What is your stress telling you?  Dr. Kase reminds us of the importance of balance in life: “Research shows that we tend to be happiest when we go with our gut. It’s hard to hear your intuition when you’re in a cycle of worry and stress. So give yourself a break—take a long walk, get a good night’s sleep or go out for a bite to eat.” Great advice. And though your job might have periods of total stress, you handle them, you learn from them, you love your job–it’s the best.

MAYBE THIS IS A REASON TO KEEP GOING

February 23, 2025 2 Comments

A

A reader and long-time friend writes: 

As I read articles lauding Alice Munro, I have begun thinking how unsung your work and your life is. You are and have been a more remarkable, absolute North Star.

As you nursed, as you taught, as you nurtured and loved/ befriended, nourished bodies and souls, are mother, wife, sister, and writer, you have excelled and pointed others to their North Star.

I hope you know what an outstanding example of the best of humanity you are. I hope you know how many people you touch with love and grace.

I wish people could get to know you through your writing. I have had an inside view along with your blog, but others should have the privilege through the publishing of your work.

Until then, hold close to the knowledge that you healed, nourished, nurtured and enlightened peoples’ bodies and souls.   Love   BC

To respond to BC, I am sharing this: a scene from my novel, which I believe has value. Would you keep reading…and don’t hold back….thanks, Beth 

* *  *  *

“Mama, I can’t do this shit. Make it stop, make it stop!”

Sixteen-year old LaToya Jackson, primigravida, no prenatal classes, now in labor…Ella Singleton’s first patient on her 3-11 shift, the girl’s mother silent, occasionally leaning forward from a chair near the door. 

“Push, LaToya, push. Like I showed you. You can do this. When you feel a contraction coming, take a deep breath and push, push like you mean it.” 

This was Ella’s first patient on her 3-11 shift.  

“Mama, make it stop. Can’t do this shit. Tell the lady, make it stop.”

 Ella tried again. “LaToya, it’s going to be okay, but you have to push. It’s what all woman have to do to have a baby. Your mother had to, I did…”

Ella reminding herself to keep her voice firm but quiet…her patient just a sixteen-year-old girl having a baby. And though Ella had helped others in smiler stress at Chicago Community Hospital, LaToya was more frightened, fragile…her chart absent of the name of this infant’s father…some boy, some man lost during the last nine months of LaToya’s life. Not there to witness LaToya’s face crumple in pain and fear as Ella urged her again.

“You have pain? Use it. Hold your breath and push.”

And maybe the girl would finally get it, stop thrashing, focus, get this baby out. Because with each push Ella could see dark hair advancing, then receding, the girl writhing in the grasp and then release of contractions, and Ella, an experienced nurse, no longer caught up in her patient’s pain, though as a mother she remembered the burning of the perineal tissues, every pain receptor lashing out at the weight, the force of that head.  

 “Mama, make it stop!”

“It’s okay, Toy, you can do it.” The mother’s voice warm pudding, soothing, she glancing at the girl before looking back to the television, her face flaccid, her distant demeanor palpable in the chaos of beeping monitors, thrumming IV pumps and now the click of the blood pressure machine as it began its fifteen-minute automatic check. And then LaToya, screaming: “Shit—cut me, make it fucking stop.”   

The girl’s words…familiar, Ella checking the infant’s progress on the fetal monitor, noting that during a contraction the fetus’s heart tones dipped from pressure on the umbilical cord. Normal, but time to have LaToya change her position, get the baby off the cord, heart tones quickly recovering, 130’s, 140’s—strong, quick beats. Ella moving to the head of the bed, wiping the girl’s forehead with a soft cold cloth. 

“You’re doing great, you don’t want a C-section, and it’s almost time to move to the delivery room. LaToya you can do this. I’m going to help you have this baby.”

“Mama?” Tears mingling with sweat on the girl’s face, she crumpling up the smoothness of glistening skin, then grunting, “Get this out a me!”

Ella moved quickly, no need to check the patient with sterile, gloved fingers, all the signs now there. And as LaToya bore down again, Ella could see a large circle of dark curly hair, approximately four centimeters.   

“MOVING THREE!” 

In seconds nurse Zoey appeared, unplugging the bed from the wall, disconnecting monitors, the two tugging the bed toward the door, IV bags swaying back and forth.     

“We’ll make it, lots of time, delivery right across the hall,” Ella said, her words directed to no one in particular, LaToya’s mother working to cover nose and mouth with a mask, pull on a head cap, LaToya moaning, crying, “It’s comin, it’s comin–”

 In the OR, every second counted, other personnel appearing to break down the bed so LaToya could be placed in the lithotomy position, her feet in stirrups; Zoey spreading cloths on the floor, the resident MD placing sterile drapes over LaToya’s legs and abdomen. Ella swathing her patient’s perineal tissues with sterile betadine solution, the staff waiting, ready to grab the baby to be born. A strange silence settled over the room, and when the next contraction began, LaToya screamed, pushed, delivering the head, she now crying, not hearing the resident’s instructions to slow it down, slow, slow so he could maneuver the delicate shoulder, and LaToya pushing again, delivering her 6 lb. 5 oz. infant. Ella noted the time. Only then did she look at the genitalia, announcing, “It’s a girl, at 18:32.”

 

We Writers Listen to Donald Maass and Others. We Do Our Research

February 16, 2025 4 Comments

I follow a blog for writers that is blessed occasionally with a piece by literary agent and author for writers, Donald Maass. He offers insights into the writing process, but he also lives in the real world. So in answer to a writer’s post he wrote: (Note: the response has been edited) Stories do not require a consensus. They do not legislate. Their purpose is to persuade. But persuade us of what? And how? 

In a novel, (or screen play, script that becomes a film) to prove others wrong, it is first necessary to acknowledge that they may be right. Thus, 

  • create characters who represent divergent ways of thinking and doing–actually opposing ideas are represented by opposing characters. (Brilliant and basic. Every television drama presents tension–because people with differing points of view are interacting.)
  • create characters to be strong, as each must face his or her weaknesses. (As writers, our characters often face what we are afraid of). As readers, we will not be moved unless we see humanity first. The character must fail. And then to persuade us to change, the character must change because of the failure. In other words, they see the light.  

Maass states: 

  • Writers must create antagonists whose case is excellent, and heroes who are flawed. 
  • But in order to truly be a hero, those characters must learn and then change. 
  • Thus, the power of storytelling to change us (the reader) lies in the courage writers summon to see things as others do. It depends on creating heroes who are flawed and must learn. Most of all, it requires that authors humble themselves, writing not out of resentment, but out of twined compassion and conviction about what is right. 
  • ( I think that is brilliant.)

Maass asks: What is the bell you will ring in your writing? What clear and simple truth does it sound? Words are strong when you know their purpose. Stories speak loudest when the storyteller first listens.

OKAY, I AM LISTENING

Writers speak through their characters. They use their so-flawed-ideas and their closer-to-perfect ideas. Both are on the page!

My novel-in-progress presents a crack in the foundation of a marriage: one of the partners decides to forget an initial pledge to be compassionate in life and help others. He is turning away. She is not. But that doesn’t make her an angel. Maybe she is going overboard, and thus wrong in her belief that she can change people through empathy and compassion. It helps me to grapple with my own fears and insecurities, while getting into the skin of my characters.

FINDING COMPASSION THROUGH SELF-TENSION 

Recently, Erin Aubry Kaplan published a piece in the LA TIMES, entitled A New Reckoning for Whiteness. And I found a connection between the hero of any novel or story wrestling with his or her flawed-ness, before becoming a hero-again. And thus, I am wrestling with my own lived life. Kaplan writes that our current president’s “both-sides” problem just might make some citizens grapple with a crucial question: What does it mean to be white? Or, what does it really mean?

It was a hard piece to read. But necessary. Kaplan asks: “It (the question) requires individual answers to intimate questions: How do I feel as a white person? What advantages do I take for granted based on my skin color? How do I see nonwhites? Or do I see them at all?”

Kaplan writes that if white people struggle with these questions, she has struggled with similar ones all her life: “What sort of black person are you? Middle class or ghetto, articulate or down-home, educated or irrational, bourgeoisie or radical?”

She writes that currently, “no one can indulge in the illusion of togetherness. He’s (POTUS 45& 47) disrupting a surface that needs to be disrupted, for good.” (or for The good)

She’s saying that in order to write the best American story, each of our “characters” has to look and acknowledge our flaws, before we can go back to believing in the “prefect union” we so desire. And thus (if we do) we become the heroes of our story. Reading the entire article and seeing the whole of her argument, might be disruptive — but then, now we are becoming used to that EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Thus, I have been examining my whiteness. Yes, I benefited from living in a middle class Chicago neighborhood, attending private schools. I knew few black people growing up. My high school was integrated, but barely. Did I make an attempt to befriend my fellow black students? Again, barely. Maybe I felt myself absolved by the literature I was reading and analyzing,  CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY. Big deal.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated, black students referred to themselves as the “worms in our apple.” By the time I was teaching in an integrated high school that pulled from neighborhoods of poor whites and blacks–I was more awake. (I don’t like that term, but it works.) I did fight to stay awake, but even now, I wouldn’t give myself an A plus. And my Conclusion…..as a writer:

I must read widely, question my beliefs, work toward openness. As a citizen, I must do the same, use my brain to see lies, prejudice, rule-breaking, downright evil. AGAIN, we find ourselves in a time that requires QUESTIONING. Writers, teachers, parents, leaders…we cannot accept the status quo. We must believe in what Maass suggests above: it requires authors to humble themselves, writing not out of resentment, but out of twined compassion and conviction about what is right.

Or another way to say it: WHEN YOU WRITE, OPEN YOUR HEART AS WELL AS YOUR EYES. 

Erin Aubry Kaplan 

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