My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir

by Jenn Shapland

I read an interview with Myles that offers writing, self-exposure or self-representation, as an antidote to—or an action of—loneliness: “You tell it cause you’re lonely—you’re the only person inside that life.”

Mary tells her, “I do believe that there is such a thing as mature love but it takes devotion and discipline on both people’s part. People are so starved for love, so greedy, that at the first sign of emotional attraction and response, their tendency is to clutch and wish to merge and in the end the hope for love escapes them. It takes a great deal of courtesy and ability to see and love the difference, the separateness of the other. To be willing to let the other person be himself, [sic] free, different.”

learned that I love that blur, the murk, the shift that androgyny in appearance allows, not as a means of escape from one label or another, but rather as a means of occupation. I occupy the category woman, and that category must expand to contain me. In all my outfits.

One’s self and one’s world constantly shift and alter, and all we know for sure about either is that they are never the same, but this doesn’t stop us from acting as if they are continuous, stable. As if the future will follow logically from the present, as if the present is something we are really able to know.