A History of Scars
Page 16
And I think, too, about how filled her world was with fear. How lonely she was. How alone she was, without resources to turn to in society, for help. I think about her students, who didn’t have a fully functioning teacher. I think about how there wasn’t an alternative path—one in which she received help, in which she didn’t have to be a money earner while simultaneously being unable to care for herself.
I live with similar sorts of fears now, as I once witnessed in her. Fears about how to fulfill, each day, the smallest of necessary tasks, to proceed to the next day. You move through the world differently once you’re unsure of your capability to care for yourself. Life becomes consciously, acutely, about survival.
In the company of those whom I value, who value me, too, as I am, there are moments of great joy. Of relief, and of beauty. Pleasure comes in the small moments, in the textures of the everyday, in moments of health, in moments of reprieve—when, in summertime, my partner and I buy boxes full of fragrant mangos on Devon, after being elbowed aside by the auntie eager to pick out the best ones. When our kitchen accidentally overflows with bananas—banana bunches everywhere—so I spend days processing bananas, freezing them, and we visit the pleasures of drinking the iced banana shakes she grew up with as a child. When we stand on chalky mats, staring up at a problem in the gym, arms waving wildly, unlocking a new sequence. When laughing over red wine and a home-cooked meal with friends.
I’m grateful each day for what hasn’t been taken from me yet, what has been preserved, even as I fear my condition may change and worsen. I’ve gotten sicker; who knows what the future holds. I want to keep up with my partner, to build a life together that doesn’t involve holding her back. Whether this is possible is a question to which I don’t have an answer, or which I’m afraid to contemplate.
Even if parts of myself deteriorate, I’m also equipped with the skills I learned in youth and beyond, in how to take care of others and myself. I’m blessed with love—the capacity to feel it deeply, to be motivated by it, and to possess and share it with someone equally aware of its worth.
I feel keenly the divide between what I want to achieve, to contribute, to do, and what’s possible for me. I feel my limitations. I’m too sensitive for this world. And yet I’m here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Roxane Gay for caring enough to help, time and again, in so many ways, and without whose assistance this work wouldn’t exist in the world.
Thank you to Johanna V. Castillo for lending excellence and expertise, and for steady guidance in navigating new terrain. Thank you to Wendy Sabrozo for easing the process and making the journey a pleasant one. Thank you to Michelle Herrera Mulligan for sharing insight and encouragement, and for making this book a reality. Thank you to Min Choi for the beautiful cover design. Thank you to Melanie Iglesias Pérez, Erin Patterson, and everyone at Atria and Writers House.
Thank you to Sharon Solwitz, Kaveh Akbar, and Dr. Nush Powell, for aid in finishing grad school. Thank you to Don Platt, for leading with kindness, and to Marianne Boruch, for sharing poetic wonder. Thank you to Chris Durbin, for listening and helping. Thank you to my MFA cohort.
Thank you to Ellen Usher, George Singleton, and Barbara Ensor, for help in pursuing grad school. Thank you to the Wesleyan Writers Conference, Big River Writers Conference, Cape Cod Writers Conference, and Eckerd Writers’ Conference.
Thank you to Ryan for believing I could write, and supporting me in finding my way. Thank you to my sister, for supporting me in speaking. Thank you to Hannah Rahimi for friendship. Thank you to Chelsy and Basil for the same.
Thank you to mere jaanu, for home.
More in Personal Memoirs
The Glass Castle
Shoe Dog
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
Year of Yes
An Invisible Thread
Primates of Park Avenue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Lee is a writer based in Chicago. She holds a BA in comparative literature from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from Purdue University. A History of Scars is her first book.
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Interior design by Jill Putorti
Cover design by Min Choi
Cover illustration by 123RF
Author photograph © Laura Lee
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lee, Laura (MFA), author.
Title: A history of scars : a memoir / Laura Lee.
Description: First Atria Paperback edition. | New York : Atria Paperback, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020007955 (print) | LCCN 2020007956 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982127282 (paperback) | ISBN 9781982127299 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Lee, Laura (MFA)—Mental health. | Psychic trauma—Patients—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC RC552.T7 L44 2021 (print) | LCC RC552.T7 (ebook) | DDC 362.19685/210092 [B]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007955
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007956
ISBN 978-1-9821-2728-2
ISBN 978-1-9821-2729-9 (ebook)