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E D I T O R ' S_N O T E

Look for excerpts from Anne Lamott's new book, "Traveling Mercies," on Fridays; Word by Word, Lamott's biweekly Thursday column, will return March 4.

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T A B L E_T A L K

Are infertility treatments worth the agony? Discuss forcing the hand ofnature in the Mothers areaof TableTalk

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Love Sallie Tisdale's "Second Thoughts"? Buy her books at BarnesandNoble.com!
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R E C E N T L Y

A dime bag for the schoolgirl
By Janet McDonald
I thought escaping Vassar to make Harlem drug runs meant I could be in the elite world, but not of it
(02/24/99)

A nose for things
By Debra Fay Holton
My mother was tidy and crisp, which is why Janine's vacant mother and messy house were just what I was looking for
(02/23/99)

It's a microbe's life
By Debra Ollivier
Land of the free, home of the clean freak -- the latest round ofmicrobial warfare has turned America into a paranoid hot zone
(02/22/99)

Flea market
By Anne Lamott
It turns out faith is like a little cat that you let in once and feed, and it stays forever
(02/19/99)

Let-r play
By Polly Shulman
Classic and iconoclastic books shake up the alphabet and take kids on a trip through the Dictionapolis of the written word
(02/18/99)

BROWSE THE SECOND THOUGHTS ARCHIVES

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Salon Columnists

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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AMNESIA | PAGE 1, 2
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It's easier to pretend that past means past and gone. Then we canreallybelieve we are not who we once were, treat our painful condition as a distantecho of someone else's mistakes. But right here in this body, this form, wefeel death and birth in an hour, a day; we are born and die in the space of asingle breath.

What I understood at last through reading her words (my words), readingthrough the mistakes made in deadly earnest and repeated over and over again,what I understood then was the arc of her life (my life). This brief, brightlife of a young woman who was born with a question and who died with theanswer. She died when she discovered the road of discontent, died in thefaint breathof knowing the subtle gifts of growing up. She died and a new me was born, ayoung adult me, who forgot and had to ask the question again, and again,carefully shielded from learning the answer again too soon.

My young adult life was longer, a little slower, a life slowlymoving inward and outward in waves. That young woman (that me) capturedthose waves inthousands upon thousands of words, in repeated mistakes, lessons learned andsoon forgotten. A great tension filled that life (my life) -- the dynamictension between seeing others and being seen by them, being what others wantedme to be and showing others who I was. Always the same question was there,the long-held question about what contentment might be, how the rocky road ofunfilled need and yearning could still be full of joy -- what this meant, thislesson I'd already seemed to learn once, that discontent is something withwhich we can be happy. Dissatisfaction without end, contentment withoutbeginning -- what a mystery, buried under busy days. Now and then, brightmoments, dancing joy, glimpses.

Toward the end of that young adult life, when I wasn't so young anymore, Ifound myself writing the story that required me to read those old journals,to look back. I had a simple topic: the basement. I had towrite a story about a basement for a book based on the rooms of a house. Iknew what I wanted to write, something about the scooter my brother and sisterand I had played with at our grandmother's house, and I needed to check adate. I had a deadline, rent to pay, no time for more than a brief descentinto the past.

Finally, I put the journals aside and went back to the story, which seemed asimple one at first. And it turned on me, as stories will -- billowing outbigger and bigger, like a seeping wound. In that basement, my grandmother'sbasement, I discovered so much fear, such sorrow, a pool of loneliness I hadtried to forget. I discovered -- turning away, not willing to see with botheyes -- a brave little girl who had spent dark, cold hours down there, waitingto grow up and get away. The story was suddenly raw and bloody inmy hands, and I was a coward. I spent weeks huddled over notes in my room,ducking blows, unable to write a word.

Until one day, sitting alone, I began to weep, and my mind filled with thewords: "That poor little girl." That poor little girl, all those girls, thedays of those girls, banging up against the world and demanding to know why.That little girl was gone. She'd had a few hard years. She'd done her best.She'd been a strong one. And in the end, she got away. She got away. And itwas time to let her ghost go, too.

A little while later, the woman who struggled with that story wasready todie. Something about facing that forgotten past brought her own life -- mylife -- to a close. Me, today -- middle-aged me, whose grandmother isdead andburied, too -- I'm not afraid of that story. The memories don't disturb. Thetemplate I feel beneath and around me like a ghostly skin is powerfullyconditioned by those years of fear, but today I'm not afraid. I'm marked bycourage, too. And I'm letting go of what's gone. Surprises.

Now I can say to this 17-year-old girl, to the child who gave birthto her, to the woman I used to be: I see through you. I see me through you,and you through me. Each of us knew, at least once, the answer to a long-held question about unhappiness and joy, discontent and satisfaction. Morethan once, in more than one way, each of us knew how these things fit intoone. And each forgot, and learned again, and forgot, and the lessons werenever wholly lost.

I go back to the little girl, who was and was not me. I seethrough her,love her, feel the heart of who I am now opening for the first time, beatingfor the first time, with the blood of that little girl, all little girls, allyoung hearts, all.
SALON | Feb. 25, 1999