‘For Keeps': Growing older through a woman's eyes

By Joy Tipping

May 14, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune News Service delivered by Newstex) -- "For Keeps," edited by Victoria Zackheim; Seal Press ($15.95)
------
You won't find "For Keeps" on the same bookstore shelf as most books aimed at middle-age and older women -- you know, the books about anti-aging techniques, the latest in tummy tucks and collagen creams, or how to dress "appropriately for one's age."
This book is more about the psychology of growing older than concerned with the myriad tricks one can try to stop the inevitable.
The subtitle trumpets the essay collection's defiant, "we're great the way we are" philosophy: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance.
Editor Victoria Zackheim, 63, says she originally wanted to call the book "Body and Soul," and that it still reflects that idea. "The book is really about how body and soul work together, always, whether the women are talking about overcoming accidents, illness, depression, aging, whatever," she says from home in San Francisco.
The essayists in "For Keeps" write about a variety of issues, in oft-surprising ways: Liza Nelson discusses the silver lining of her mastectomy -- getting the small chest she'd always wanted; Clea Simon remembers growing up with a schizophrenic sister who killed a pet in front of her; Susan Ito recalls meeting her birth mother.
"The 27 essays in 'For Keeps' are very, very different ... but the one thing they have in common is the strength of each of these writers in telling extremely difficult stories. They all had to really dig in and figure out who they were and how to present their stories," Zackheim says.
Novelist Louisa Ermelino's essay, "Death Becomes Her," talks about the period in 2004 when both her mother and husband were dying.
The self-discovery Zackheim talks about wasn't easy for her. "I don't really like to dig in there and look around," Ermelino, 60, says with a laugh from her office in New York City. "That's why I write novels, to distance it from myself."
But once she started working on the essay, she says, "I realized that I did come out of it very positively. This life is not open-ended, and I'm not going to waste any time."
Many of the essayists tackle body issues. Aimee Liu, 54, talks about her "personal assaults" on her body in "Dead Bone," something she also wrote about in her 2007 book, "Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders."
Liu, who lives in Los Angeles, says the main point she wanted to get across was, "We have to be kind to ourselves, compassionate to our bodies ... partly it's being conscious of what we're doing and being objective about ourselves."
Stepping outside one's self, even for a few minutes, can bring breakthroughs, she says. Carrie Kabak, 56, of Kansas City, Mo., can definitely relate to that. Her essay, "Every Eyelash, Mole and Freckle," details with unflinching specificity the tyranny of nit-picking that her mother inflicted on her from an early age.
"Mum may marvel at my thin ankles, but her hips are neater. My eyes may be larger, but her hands are finer." After a lifetime of criticism on everything from hair color to choice of mate, Kabak decided at 46 that enough was enough and cut off all ties with her mother.
In her essay, she writes: "I fell out of love with her after coming to the painful realization that I was nothing more than an instrument of self-gratification, as easily discarded as a cigarette end.
"But my body and mental health are so much better for it."
That's the end point of virtually every essay in the book -- body and soul, as Zackheim might phrase it, coming together for the betterment of both.
------
(c) 2008, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.


For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Newstex ID: KRTN-0012-25260665