Whether the “natural” part of my womanhood is an essential biological fact or an expression (as de Beauvoir argued) of an acculturation so deep it looks very much like roots growing out of the bulb, at this point in my life I confess I don’t know and I don’t care. I am not a scientist or a sociologist. I’m a novelist. Who can admit, late in the day, during this strange and overwhelming season of death that collides, outside my window, with the emergence of dandelions, that spring sometimes rises in me, too, and the moon may occasionally tug at my moods, and if I hear a strange baby cry some
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