GAINING:
The Truth About Life
After Eating Disorders
|
ANTHOLOGIESWhy The Great Wall Is Like Love An excerpt from Aimee's essay in WHY I'M STILL MARRIED: The Ch’in emperors who originally envisioned the Great Wall snaking across the face of China believed they could unify their civilization by constructing a barrier that would at once keep invading barbarians out and restless subjects in. They spent centuries proving the plan didn’t work while simultaneously creating one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Wall was never completed. Attacking hordes easily scaled it. Vast sections fell into ruin. The beauty of that serpentine line today lies as much in the audacity of its inception and echoes of voices stilled in its rubble as in the concrete details of geography and structure. It may be a mistake to overromanticize such an imperfect symbol of wholeness. The Middle Kingdom was never actually the middle of anything other than its own illusions, and the Wall marked neither the beginning nor the end of civilization. But when astronauts spot the Wall through their windshields in outer space, they don’t think about the imperfection. They don’t fault the line for being too short, or too old, or irrelevant. They speak of the sighting with awe and pride, as if the Wall is their own. From that great distance it marks where every one of us comes from, and where we belong. What people are saying... Each of the contributors to this thought-provoking collection has terrific stories and wisdom to share, and they all do it masterfully. "Nobody is a perfect match and we have to accept that," writes Marge Piercy...NPR reporter Maria Hinojosa says, "I stay married because this is the one person who understands how to help make me into a better person. "You might not agree with everyone's theories–Hannah Pine defends her choice to be a mother in an open marriage–but each one deals with the real problems, and pleasures, of marriage. As editor Trounstine puts it: "[m]arriage doesn't have the excitement of the illicit or the thrill of the daredevil. It's more like the quiet hum of the everyday and the occasional surprise of the sunset." --Publishers Weekly "This book charts the vicissitudes of marriage with an honesty that is rarely brought to a topic as private as this. To read it is to enlarge one's sense of what is possible in long term love. Why I’m Still Married is hopeful, provocative, challenging, and always eloquent." --Lauren Slater, author of Prozac Diary . . .24 women probe their marriages with humor and compassion, and 24 "whys" are hinted at. . . . Why are they still married - love? Commitment? Children? Security? Companionship? To be able to use the first-person plural? Yes to all that, but also maybe something as seemingly simple as Eve LaPlante's successful search for a man she'd like to chat with over breakfast for 50 years. By her reckoning, that's 18,260 breakfasts. Seems as good a reason as any. --Judith Long, Newsday |
 Aimee's essay in FOR KEEPS is titled "Dead Bone" |
