Have you seen the latest issue of Ms.?
You know, the one with an essay by — oh —ME in it?
[Pause here for silent gleeful scream into my elbow.]
Yep, that’s me, in Ms. Right there.
There.
[Heeeeeeeeeeeeeee!]
(Just so we’re clear, that’s not me on the cover, in case you’re curious . That’s Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.)
My contribution to Ms. is, while slightly less awe-inspiring than Aung San Suu Kyia’s, still very happy-making to me: it’s a new version of an essay that made a not-insignificant number of you cry a while back: about planning (and planning again, and again, and still again) my wedding in the face of my mother’s final battle with breast cancer. “Four (Same-Sex) Weddings & a Funeral” is being published in Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort’s soon-to-be released anthology Here Come the Brides: Reflections on Lesbian Love & Marriage (put out by the very fantastic Seal Press) and I am thrilled (in case you couldn’t tell) that my contribution to the book was chosen to be excerpted in Ms.
Ms.! As in, maybe Gloria Steinem has read my writing now.
So all of you doing that combo English/Women’s Studies degree and wondering — or fending off questions about — what exactly you’ll do with this particular degree: here’s one option. I am about to clear out the Northern Woman’s Bookstore of all the available copies, so if you live in Thunder Bay, let me know if you want me to leave a couple on the shelves. A certain large chain, apparently, does not carry this particular magazine. If you can imagine that.
(This one’s for you, Ruthi! Well, they all are.)
So many kinds of awesome I can’t stand it! Congrats (and Gloria definitely read it. How could she not?)
Congrats Susan! Awesomepants
Congratulations! That’s absolutely fantastic and WELL DESERVED!
hot damn. loved that essay.
Ruthi’s smiling; so am I. Mazel tov.
I am sure that Gloria Steinem will read your writing, if because of the buzz around the water cooler if nothing else.
She is a busy woman but she will hear all the cubicles buzzing about something, what is all that noise about???
“What is it?”
“It’s the essay in this month’s magazine, everyone just loves it.”
“Oh, the essay in this month’s Ms. by Susan Goldberg? Well, I hadn’t found time yet but it sounds like it’s worth a look. Bring me a copy, if everyone is talking about it so much I need to make sure I read it.”
And she will.
Then she will reach for her tissues like all of us did and she will smile.
And somewhere Ruthi will smile too.
I’m grinning, Brenda. Thanks.
I had read your story when you originally posted. I remember crying then.
I just re-read it.
And yes, I am weeping again.
Congrats on the publish. Nicely done.
Publishing is sharing — on a grander scale. I like sharing.
On the re-read my tears were compounded with the experience of losing my mom — a few months after you posted this.
Also to cancer. Also a grueling, destructive and numbing experience.
My wife and I actually married a month before she was diagnosed. I remember her looking at our wedding pictures saying…look at me there…look how sick i look.
We married in January of 09, in February she was diagnosed with n-stage liver cancer. She asked her oncologist for one more football season. He granted her wish. Tho the following summer was brutal, and the battle was lost by October.
There is something…just something about your life – after your mother dies.
Wow, Weese. I’m so sorry. I’m glad your mom got her football season, but that really sucks. And there is something about your life … we’re in the club.
Susan, did you know that Gloria has BLURBED the book? I’m going to send a link to your post to her to make sure she’s read your wonderful essay!! And as to running out of Ms. copies in Thunder Bay, tell your friends to subscribe!! http://store.msmagazine.com/giveandgetms.aspx
Michele, I’m grinning even wider now. And subscribing seems in order, yes. Thanks!