Tuesday, November 13, 2007

More on Friendship

As always, a book project has prompted me to solicit thoughts/ideas/reactions from various people; now, I'm thinking about--friendship. On 11/19/07, I posted an entry "On Writing and Friendship" with which there are also posted two comments about friendships.

Annie Unverzagt, a very special friend from the time we were graduate students in the mid-1960s, sent me her cherished copy of Gert & Frieda, by Anita Riggio (New York: Atheneum, 1990) along with her thoughts that she said I could post:
Annie on friendship: This delightful children's book tells a wonderful story about friendship. It seems to capture some essentials: emphathetic listening, acceptance of a friend's quirks and differences, enabling a friend to find their strengths, supporting your friend in good times and bad. Our family--especially the girls--have always loved this book, mostly because of "hugging around the middle" concept. I suspect we are attracted to the humor and whimsy that underlie friendship. No one is taking here--it is a relationship of giving on both parts.

As I get older, I am most appreciative of the timeless quality in a good friendship. It does not seem to matter if you last visited together yesterday or many years ago. There is the caring and interest in your friend's life and living that seems to transcend time, especially when feelings are mutual. You have moved beyond the level of getting something out of a relationship, even if it is only "does the person like me" to purely enjoying the opportunity to exchange in an atmosphere of acceptance.

I have always treasured loyalty as a time-tested strength of friendship. I suppose that is fruther refined to maintaining friendship without requiring anything in return. I think things are much trickier with political--or any other reason--friendships such as the one you are explaing in your book.

Monday, November 12, 2007

On Writing

Now that I'm in the writing phrase of Stirring Up the World, words, phrases, sentences spontaneously appear in my brain, including in the middle of the night. I went to sleep--or tried to last night--with an unsolved writing problem; about midnight a glimmer of a solution materialized. Humm, I thought, I wonder if it is worth getting up & trying this??? My body said no, but my brain was insistent--no, sleep for you until you see whether or not it works if you delete this and add that. (By works, I mean that I continue to move forward, i.e. that what I've written propels me onward, saying what I want to say, getting me to where I want to go, keeping readers turning the page.) So, I got up, stumbled in the dark down several flights of stairs to my basement office, and happily wrote and wrote until after 2:00 am! Double happily, this morning I reread my night-time writing and concluded that it works in the light of day too!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Grace Paley and The Great Hall at Cooper Union

Last night I went to "A Tribute to Grace Paley: An Evening of Readings and Remembrance" at The Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York City.
Paley was a poet, short story writer and political activist. Francine Prose, president of PEN American Center, opened the evening. She was followed by Paley's daughter Nora. Other participants, including Katha Pollitt, Sonia Sanchez, Walter Mosley, Michael Cunningham, and Vera B. Williams, read from Paley's works and gave reminiscences. The program opened and closed with a recording of Grace Paley reading her poem Responsibility that includes these lines: It is the poet's responsibility to speak truth to power as the/Quakers say/It is the poet's responsibility to learn the truth from the powerless/It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no freedom without justice and this means economic justice and love justice/. . . . It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on/this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be/listened to this time.
The announcement of the event had this quote from Paley:
Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.
Her dream for her grandchildren, Grace Paley said in a May 2007 interview was: It would be a world without militarism and racism and greed--and where women don't have to fight for their place in the world.
I was moved by the event and thrilled to finally be inside the The Great Hall of Cooper Union, the scene of many legendary speeches and meetings and events in American history. The Great Hall, which opened in 1858, has figured in several of my books, including Strike! The Bitter Struggle of American Workers from Colonial Times to the Present--where I wrote about the mass meeting of striking workers on November 25, 1909, when Clara Lemlich, a teenage worker who had been badly beating during her stint on the picket line, electrified the meeting with her words: "I am a working girl, one of those who are on strike against intolerable conditions. I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms. What we are here for is to decide whether we shall or shall not strike. I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared--now!" Lemlich's call to action resulted in, what became known as, "The Uprising of the 20,000," a strike that dramatically demonstrated the power of semi-skilled and unskilled immigrant women workers and catapulted women into prominence in the labor movement, which had traditionally ignored them.

The Great Hall was also the scene of the first meeting of the U. S. Sanitary Commission that organized the hospital transport ships during the Civil War. I wrote about Katharine Wormeley, a lady superintendent aboard the hospital transport ships in Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories About Women Who Made a Difference. My essay about Wormeley includes excerpts of her letters. On May 31, 1862, from on board the Knickerbocker she wrote to her mother: It is a piteous sight to see these men: no one knows what war is until they see this black side of it. We may all sentimentalize over its possibilities as we see the regiments go off, or when we hear of a battle; but it is as far from the reality as to read of pain is far from feeling it.

And, of course, The Great Hall played a role in the fight for women's rights--meetings were held there and most of the male and female leaders spoke there, including the women I'm currently writing about--Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. At one time, Anthony had an office in The Great Hall.
p.s. I'm happy to report that two days ago I finally moved from the intense research phase to the writing phase of Stirring Up the World: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a Biography of a Powerful Friendship.