River People

Old Women in Fiction Live On

I write about women, and I’m discovering that over time my characters--even in work already published--change for me. These women who come to me, wanting on my page, wanting to share their humanity, their losses, fears and missteps are not done. I think how strong women often live unglamorous lives and in the shadows. The wisest have risen up through paltry concerns for dress size, wrinkles, and sags. They no longer accept others’ judgments of them nor disrespect themselves with their own judgments. But when life turns them old and crusty, even confused like Granny, we discount them. We’re taught they no longer matter. So they sit obediently in their houses, or in their cells at the home—waiting, as we also wait for them to die. They know nothing of Crone-hood. They are there at the curb waiting for pick-up. The next time I see an old woman on the street, a “wet brown bag of a woman,” [Lucille Clifton] I’ll think of Granny and wonder. I’ll wonder at the incredible life this woman has lived and all the experiences that put her where she is now. I'll know her life story would very likely make my own tepid by comparison.