Roxane Gay, a brilliant and incisive critic and essayist whose work I admire and respect immensely, and who is now the essays editor for the Rumpus –– an incredible publication born out of passion and desire to create something new by Stephen Elliott –– asked me to share my thoughts on "comporting yourself with elegance in the modern age," with the caveat that it had to be a more personal piece than I would write. People have been asking me to write a memoir for fifteen years (and I'm 32). This may be it.
I had to write a memoir in 7th Grade as an English assignment. You can imagine. It was a tell-all to end all. I wish I still had it. It's probably still available on microfilm in my "permanent records." I can recall certain passages....I was not kind to those who had wronged me.
Elegance was a theme that ran through it, however. Female elegance, that is--my mother, whom I estimated had married far beneath herself (perhaps true, perhaps not, it was love); and my two glorious paternal aunts who had the good graces to teach me to eat with a fork and knife at an early age, early planning for the high school graduation party they were already planning for me at the elegant Luau Room in Dallas, which did happen.
My lifetime goal of spending my life on the stage and in front of the camera. Which did not happen.
Oh how I suffered for my art at age 13. By age 32 I'd sold out so long ago that I actually ENJOYED writing advertising copy. That's how ill I had become.
Posted by: Gary Porter | February 20, 2012 at 01:02 PM
Fabulous, fabulous article which I am just printing out.
Be careful Lauren, you are going to cost me a new printer soon!
Posted by: anita | February 21, 2012 at 09:48 AM