Jan Priddy’s Reviews > Falling from Horses > Status Update

Lily trying to get into writing scripts. Visits an editor. The earliest editors in Hollywood were women. That would have been changing by the time Lily was there, because men figured out how important the editing was and began pushing women out. Still, many great editors have been women. It was a famous woman, Verna Fields, who edited Jaws, for example, and Spielberg credits the tension of the film to her cuts.

I am struck by the wisdom of this story. How we remember, what we remember and the way we piece that into our life story—a quilt of patched together scenes, arranged in ways that make sense to ourselves but not necessarily "true" or complete or in any sort of order that fits into a pattern anyone else would devise.

Bud's story begins, it seems to me, about 100 years ago and 30 years before I was born. That seems so long, but I am reminded that my grandmother rode in a covered wagon from Texas nearly 150 years ago. The world changes from our making. Our beachfront property was like the Frazer's second home, no water or electricity, miles from town. An outhouse. My mother and her sister cleaned the kerosine chimneys on Tuesdays.