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I felt seen by Dana Spiotta’s Wayward in a scary way I’d rather not admit to, yet, here we are. It’s a book about middle age in the moment of our now, when every day feels like a newly minted crisis, some slice of fresh hell. It’s also about running away.
One day, Sam Raymond of Syracuse New York flees her suburban life that, after the election of a certain ex-President/dictator and her entre into menopause, feels increasingly false and empty. Since she is a white woman of a certain social class, Sam buys and moves into a dilapidated historic home in the city of Syracuse and slowly restores it. She resists the impulse to fill it mindlessly with new objects and experiences. Yes, that is a big fat metaphor. As Sam keenly observes of herself, “her sense of resistance was as manufactured as the need to buy flattering clothes.” So goes the unraveling of middle age in the era of late capitalism.
As I take my own first glances over the precipice of menopause, I appreciated Sam’s spectacular belly flop into the messy waters of midlife, her refusal to continue scrabbling at perfection, her fully inhabiting “the dilapidated house.” The female body at midlife, our fucked up, broken country trying to reckon with its own history of racism and sexism, it’s all here in Sam’s story.
For me, even more than the spot-on cultural commentary for which Spiotta’s work is often praised, it was Sam’s journey into the unknown, despised, and demonized “historic home” of the unrepaired middle aged body that resonated most with me. Sit with this quote, think about whether and how you (and by you I mean me) are always already stress-bracing yourself against the impact of change. Then, read Wayward:
“There is a lie in young fit bodies. There is something human--touching--in the older body, in its honest relationship to decay and time… It was as if people mostly live in a state of terror about what is to come, what is happening to their bodies. It wasn’t just terror; it was shame.”
One day, Sam Raymond of Syracuse New York flees her suburban life that, after the election of a certain ex-President/dictator and her entre into menopause, feels increasingly false and empty. Since she is a white woman of a certain social class, Sam buys and moves into a dilapidated historic home in the city of Syracuse and slowly restores it. She resists the impulse to fill it mindlessly with new objects and experiences. Yes, that is a big fat metaphor. As Sam keenly observes of herself, “her sense of resistance was as manufactured as the need to buy flattering clothes.” So goes the unraveling of middle age in the era of late capitalism.
As I take my own first glances over the precipice of menopause, I appreciated Sam’s spectacular belly flop into the messy waters of midlife, her refusal to continue scrabbling at perfection, her fully inhabiting “the dilapidated house.” The female body at midlife, our fucked up, broken country trying to reckon with its own history of racism and sexism, it’s all here in Sam’s story.
For me, even more than the spot-on cultural commentary for which Spiotta’s work is often praised, it was Sam’s journey into the unknown, despised, and demonized “historic home” of the unrepaired middle aged body that resonated most with me. Sit with this quote, think about whether and how you (and by you I mean me) are always already stress-bracing yourself against the impact of change. Then, read Wayward:
“There is a lie in young fit bodies. There is something human--touching--in the older body, in its honest relationship to decay and time… It was as if people mostly live in a state of terror about what is to come, what is happening to their bodies. It wasn’t just terror; it was shame.”