My ruination at the hands of Nora Ephron began in 1978, when as a high school senior in Oakland I was able to take classes at UC Berkeley. This was a tremendous boon not just educationally but recreationally, as there were security guards constantly patrolling our high school parking lot, looking for rebellious teens such as myself who might try to cut class and leave school early. Now, thanks to my special UCB privilege, I could leave anytime I wanted and they just waved me on. That was a huge improvement in my life thus far, and not anything Ms. Ephron should be faulted for.
I decided to take English 1A first, to get a required class out of the way, and strode into Wheeler Hall one afternoon to look at the print-out of all the TA's who would be teaching different sections. I chose a cheerful-sounding woman who didn't list any Shakespeare in her required reading list, because how bad could that be?
Beth, my TA, turned out to be 24 and cute as a button. She was like a 5'2″ Barbie doll, with gorgeous flouncy hair, a great smile, and sparkling blue eyes beneath very long lashes. She held her piece of chalk like it was a cigarette, which I thought tremendously sophisticated, and kept the class jocks in line by sassing them back. Beth was a bonafide liberated woman, as well as being a talented teacher, and she wasn't going to teach from a standard-issue English text--she assigned us Nora Ephron's recent book of essays, Crazy Salad.
Suddenly I entered a world in which women could not only sass back in person, but also in print. Ephron wrote about everything from Watergate to breasts, and even dared to title a chapter "Vaginal Politics." Each week I sat in class, amazed that we were talking about Linda Lovelace and Martha Mitchell in the same breath. Each paper I wrote was a little gutsier, a little more humorous, than the last. Beth was very encouraging.
Of course it was not meant to last--anyone at the registrar's office could have told me that--but the damage had been done. I had caught a glimpse of a world that didn't actually exist, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30-4:30 pm. In this world Nora Ephron's writing was something to admire and emulate, which left me completely unprepared for what came next: Robin, the bitter TA who taught English 1B.
Robin's pathway to a PhD was littered with the trampled dreams of every young woman in her classes who dared imagine that they could write. She threw us into the viper pit of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and stomped on our fingers, laughing, as we tried to climb our way out. I learned two things in that class: one, that I would never be a serious writer, and two, that I couldn't read worth a darn, either. It took me ten years after that to finally give creative writing another try.
I blame it all on Nora and the way she breezed across the cultural battlefields of the day, tossing jokes out of her bag like some irreverent, feminist, female, neurotic Johnny Appleseed. She made it seem easy, even fun, to be a successful woman writer, at a time when such a thing barely existed outside of small enclaves like New York City.
But that is not the only wrong I have suffered at the hands of Ms. Ephron. Just last week I was reading I Feel Bad About My Neck, and this line jumped right out at me: "Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from." Damn you, Nora Ephron! Why didn't you tell me that years ago? Couldn't you have said that back when it might have done me some good, like before I married the guy who was a difficult boyfriend, an even more difficult spouse, and now that we are divorced is completely insufferable?
In Nora's defense, I was probably too young at the time to have believed her even if she'd said it to my face. That's just how it is sometimes with young love. Still, even though I was probably not going to take that bit of advice, it wouldn't have hurt to hear it a few times before marrying someone I now have to be divorced from for the rest of my life.
Ironically, though, reading the divorce comment was also what convinced me to finally let go of my hurt and resentment towards Nora Ephron. She didn't mean it personally, for one. Second, I figure that if Nora can still manage to be a funny, irreverent, feminist and neurotic writer all these many years later, she must be doing something right. Which means that Beth had it right after all, and Robin merely deserves our pity for ending up as a technical writer instead of poet laureate. She had so much potential, I am sure.
And third, maybe I should write my own relationship advice sooner rather than later, since I now have so very much of it to share. It might help the next woman unable to see clearly due to all the love-bugs squashed on her windshield. It could also prevent me from being attacked in the future for not sharing it soon enough. So I will leave you with my very first piece of advice: "Never marry anyone (updated!) you wouldn't want to be divorced from." I hope you find it just as useful as I did, and even more timely.
This piece is excerpted from a memoir-in-progress, Leaving Hotel California. Subscribe on Kindle here.
Follow Anne Hill on Twitter: www.twitter.com/annehill
That's fairly likely. Young people, or people really in love (or who think they are really in love) seldom hear those words no matter how many times they are spoken. The ex-husband is described as being a difficult boyfriend turning into an even more difficult husband. Behavior does not improve just because you got married. If you knew he was difficult and got married to him anyway, you made a poor choice, but a not uncommon choice.
I take issue with the title of this article and the concept of someone ruining your life. This is a victim attitude, a giving away of your power. No one ruined your life, you just viewed it from that point. There is always, always more than one meaning to make of any situation, no matter how bad the situation.
Of course, in the 2nd English class you had with a bitter teacher, you were very young and obviously lacked the self awareness and self esteem to realize you did not have to be like that teacher, to see she played the victim game. The later paragraphs in this article suggest that you have matured and gained the self confidence and awareness required to drop the blame game and have more control of your life. Or at least you now view life from a different angle.
Great post Anne, thanks. Nora has owned me since Heartburn - who can forget the scene in the beauty parlor when Meryl Streep's character realizes that her husband is having an affair after overhearing conversation between two stylists. It still gives me chills.
Well... maybe figuring them out for ourselves.... is part of our liberated path!
We are an unprecedented generation of women..... with opportunities, many of our foremothers dared not even dream of having.
So, we goof it up. Big deal. The right to fail and to learn from it... and to get up and dust yourself off and try again.... that is part of liberation. And frankly, it is a right worth fighting for.... because, as you may have noticed, you tend to learn a lot more from failure than from success.
Learn the lessons, then go forward, and happily share them with your younger sisters. They may take them, or they may leave them, preferring to learn them on their own!
Ah freedom!
First of all, when we marry, we are not in a position--typically--to evaluate the entirety of the relationship or the other person. Through the marriage, we begin to find out not just who this other person is, but who we are in relation to that person, and what the marriage--this new creation--is, as well. Furthermore, we may not have children, and if we have them with that person, we learn whole new sides of ourselves, and them, and the marriage. Changes occur.
We cannot know how another person will grow older emotionally, intellectually, spiritually--not to mention the most immediately obvious physically--nor can we know this of ourselves until we do it and reflect on it.
I am thinking that maybe we can twist Nora's line to be more useful to us, perhaps something like, "Never become anyone that an ex-spouse would be embarrassed to have married." And that way, no matter whom we marry, we carry ourselves toward a noble end. Am I making sense to anyone?
But maybe I am getting too serious here! (P.S. I feel bad about MY neck, too!)
However, I take issue with this line:
"... and Robin merely deserves our pity for ending up as a technical writer instead of poet laureate. She had so much potential, I am sure."
Technical writers deserve as much respect and consideration as "creative" writers. Many hours of work, thought, and, yes, creativity go into technical writing. And, in fact, work published by technical writers often has a larger audience than work published by poets laureate. That doesn't make either text more or less important, just different. Technical writing, in fact, can demand a much more flexible perspective than "creative" writing b/c of the demands of audience, purpose, and language.
As a writer, Ms. Hill, please don't disrespect other writers even if they don't fall into what you view as important, valid writing. Next time you read the directions on a bottle of medicine, put together a piece of furniture by following written instructions, or learn to use a piece of technology by reading the user manual, remember that text is the product of someone's livelihood.