Learning to ride, falling down, getting back on
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D. Rose Hartmann will stay handcuffed to her chair until she completes an eco-feminist novel. She lives in Seattle.
Hanging up the phone, I am overwhelmed with an embarrassing emotion: I am feeling left out. After all, I spent thirty-three years of my life in the San Fernando Valley waiting for The Big One. I should be in the muck of it.
At thirty-one, I steadily decay. Breasts succumb to gravity and sag. My eyes weaken. My senses falter. Well-meaning friends have offered referrals for plastic surgeons, opticians, and psychoanalysts, hinting at the necessity to fight the breakdown of body, the breakup of mind.