My friend Brooke, who lived in DC when I lived in DC, crossed paths with me many times. She was a writer for Washingtonian, our city magazine (I remember reading her reviews of spas and being insanely jealous of her job, seeing as I was a 22-year-old with brows like Eugene Levy’s). I was an editor at a literary agency and at The New Republic. I think we even met in DC once or twice. But we didn’t become friends until the Globe newsroom. She was all blonde hair and North Face; I was all big earrings and going through an unfortunate fat-phase flirtation with Loehmanns.
She’d just started working at the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and I had just started editing the Globe‘s women’s magazine, Lola. Now, Brooke’s living in suburban New York City as a stay-at-home mom (check out her blog here), but we both have sons almost the same age and have stayed in touch. In fact, I was there when she was first pregnant with Harper — we’d taken a weekend trip to Cape Cod with a couple of other writer friends, and, while out to dinner, Brooke insisted that the wine tasted weird. Turned out she was pregnant. Because, really, in what other state of mind or body does wine taste awful? (Harper is now a very cute toddler.)
So: She tagged me for a meme, and I’m going to do my best to answer here, but I might cheat a little bit and talk about articles I’ve written, too. Forgive me, Brooke–but thanks for tagging me!
– Your most beautiful post
This is tough, because I don’t consider myself a “beautiful” writer. Once I wrote a kind of mushy piece for the Globe‘s Coupling column and sent it to my brother, Matt, as per usual, for an honest critique. “This doesn’t sound like you,” he said. I got what he meant: I was trying too hard to be flowery, sentimental. It took me awhile to realize that writing can be beautiful without being ornate; I’m more Bette Midler than Gwyneth Paltrow. As long as it’s authentic, that’s all that matters. Anyway, a couple of months ago, my whole family–parents, Andy, Brian, my brother–went to a Lowell Spinners game. I always cry when I go to Lowell. Just do. I drive straight to my grandparents’ three-story tenement house at 75 Andrews Street, park in front at the weedy sign that says “parking reserved for resident of dwelling,” stare at the front porch where a little girl’s swing now hangs in the doorway, and I smell my Nana’s Shalimar, and I hear her police scanner, and I see D sweeping a proud little patch of driveway…. and I bawl.
It’s where my grandparents lived and died and didn’t want anything more than to live or die; it’s where they’re buried. My grandfather played baseball in Lowell, my parents met in Lowell, and then … here we were, back in Lowell. Watching baseball, with my son, who’s named after my grandfather. Not sure if this post was “beautiful,” but it was heartfelt, and, yes, I cried when I wrote it.
This was ages ago, but I wrote a piece for the New Republic about the post-9/11 “lost” generation. I’m reading articles now about that lost generation and the fading middle-class, and I wish I’d articulated my own points better six years ago. I was young and intimidated and young and…intimidated.
Writers are brave. Our hobbies and our emotions are also our vocations. Writers lay themselves bare; maybe it’s narcissism, maybe it’s self-loathing, maybe it’s the desire to legitimize our tendency toward capriciousness by capturing a shred of honest emotion in a moment. A friend of mine recently posted complainingly on Facebook about how annoyingly easy it is for people to classify themselves as writers or editors. Because most people write every day! Well, Brian might jog to the bus every day–but that doesn’t make him a runner. I might steam up something soggily nutritious for dinner. But it sure doesn’t make me a professional cook.
