I finished the book this morning – I couldn’t stay up long enough to finish it in one night. I still didn’t remember anything about it while I read it, even as I reread the exact passage I’d saved for my own posterity.
My initial reaction to finding the quote was to invoke the memory of how hard I have fought for the basic experience of wanting; I began to think that I am still struggling the way I might have been back in ’06. But by the end of the book, I realize that I am NOT in the same place I might have been when I read it the first time. I do not solely want what I used to want.
This time around, I’m a touch embarrassed for finding life wisdom in a romance novel. There’s a lot of talk of erections, breasts, nipples, and naked bodies, and although it’s tasteful, it’s not all that erotic. Mia did go on to have an affair with Robert; Robert stops the affair in part because she’s married; Mia’s children confront her after her affair has ended to tell her of the affair her husband has been having for three years. The book seems a bit dated, possibly because its characters use dial-up modems to check their adulterous emails. Possibly because of the content of the medical details. This time around, I don’t want the characters to base all their decisions on blind, primal wants. Mia and Robert can want, they’re entitled to want, but they oughtn’t hurt others unnecessarily in the process of identifying and obtaining their wants. They should wait, do the right thing with their wants.
Funny, perhaps after having four years of a want-filled life, I’m now somewhat smug in thinking that wants can be delayed. Sure, tell the dehydrated, lost-in-the-desert person she should wait just a bit longer for some water, when the jug is right there, and everyone can see it. Nah, emptiness from years/decades of not letting ourselves want probably does end with some damage to those who have perpetuated the myth that our needs don’t matter, or they’re only selfish, or they’re just something that will pass. Damage, violence – perhaps these are justified for the brutality of tainting and dismissing our longings and yearnings. So maybe we will take a few prisoners as we reclaim our capacity to desire.
This time through the book, I’m paying way more attention to Mia’s mother, Sally, who, at the beginning of the book is about to have a bilateral mastectomy. Years back, my Mom had breast cancer, and three years ago I had my second scare. If I’ve done the math correctly, I’ve had one biopsy, one cyst removed, three MRIs and four mammograms since I read the book the first time. I now have an oncologist (despite never having had cancer) with whom I have a three-tiered plan of risk reduction (I’m healthy, eat well and exercise 5 times a week, do nothing to excess, and there’s not much comfort in having no risk to reduce), surveillance (scans every 6 months), and prevention (I’m supposed to be taking an estrogen receptor antagonist, a drug my Mom took when she had cancer, as a preventive). But here I live with the guilt of going against medical advice because of something else I want – a body full of estrogen, my skin and body fluids mine to enjoy as long as I can, a full dose of my libido.
Sally’s the one I’m glued to as I finish the book. After the death of her husband and the loss of her breasts, the brief loss of her will to live, and the loss of physical stamina from chemotherapy, Sally allows herself to love another man, named, iconically, Dick.
“We’re figuring things out. It’s what we all have to do with each other if we want to go further. I just never found someone I wanted to be with until Dick. It’s what -” Sally feels her next sentence in her mouth and then holds it against her tongue, its bite pushing on the roof of her mouth. “It’s what you have to do if you want to go further – unless, of course, you don’t have a choice. Sometimes . . . it’s there. In front of you, knocking you on the head. There’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, though, you have to choose to move closer.” (p. 232)
Sure, there are blinding, hit-you-over-the-head kinds of love, and these seem to remove any possible choice or thought. But other times – often, in fact – we much choose to love.
There’s so much to be said about wanting what we want, and being allowed to want it, but here’s the piece about what we’re responsible for – which is creating and cultivating what we want. We can’t hide behind others, and what we think they will or won’t allow us to do. We can’t hide behind fear – that if we move toward what we want we might lose it. Of course we might. Of course, we probably will.
In a way that doesn’t feel morbid or overly sad, I realize I am going to lose everything that I cherish right now – the vitality of my body; the mothering of a son young enough to appreciate being mothered; the loving relationship with my husband. Life doesn’t stagnate and losses will come, even if I do nothing to screw things up. Time and age and death will claim my present joys, leaving only grief for what is no longer, an opening for what will come next. I hope I will have the courage, like Sally, to leave the confines of fear. It seems so obvious –now- that we’re supposed to cultivate, feed, and tend our lives and loves like a garden. Nothing will continue to flourish without fertilizer, weeding, aerating, and whatever else it is gardeners do to grow their crops. I can’t stop and rest on my laurels just because I finally got what I wanted. I will have to keep wanting, staying open to create the next thing I’ve always wanted when these things are no more. And whatever losses I encounter, I’m the want-granter now; I will have to continue to do what it takes to know my loved ones, to keep learning how to love the people who love me, as their needs change over time.
I’m also thinking about what the author is saying about a woman choosing Dick. Mia’s name, meaning “mine,” is discussed throughout the book. The author doesn’t comment on Sally’s name, but it conveys setting out, sallying forth. Sally is supposed to set out on a journey, and to choose Dick. Maybe the author is telling women to choose sex – not just sex as an act, but sex as metaphor for aliveness, fullness, meaningful connections with others that transcend body parts. In choosing Dick/dick, Sally comes to him with puckered scar tissue where her breasts should be. She’s not bringing the “sex” of her body, she’s bringing the sexuality of her entire being. Sally’s more alive without breasts than she was at the beginning of the story, living a rather small, closed-off existence. Sally emerges as a fully functioning, sexual, alive being. Choose this, the author seems to be saying.
I don’t want Mia’s life – the 20-plus years of marriage and want-less-ness, where she was loved but not known or understood, and used this to justify her unwillingness to know and understand her husband. I definitely don’t want Sally’s life, as I’m terrified of Sally’s (my Mom’s) cancer and breast loss. But I want Sally’s renewed willingness to live fully, sexually, even if pieces and parts of her have been left behind. I know a little bit about leaving pieces and parts behind, even with a mostly intact body. I have grieved and lost things I thought were too dear to me to lose. Yet here I am, in a phase of my life I would have never predicted, wrapped in an abundance I didn’t have even when I had those other parts of my life. I want to keep wanting, and to be a generous want-granter. I want to keep choosing a fully alive existence, even if I encounter irreplaceable losses. This is what I hope to remember four years from now.